


Gweilo Gongfu

by PR Zed (przed)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Chinese American Bucky Barnes, M/M, Martial Arts, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Racism is Racism, Skinny Steve Learns Gongfu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-17 00:02:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11839785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/przed/pseuds/PR%20Zed
Summary: "I can look after myself."  Steve bristled.  "And how about you?  You go around taking on three fighters from the Hip Sing Tong on a regular basis?""Sure," the guy said, and then he gave Steve a big grin.  "I don't like bullies either.""Jeez, we're two of a kind, ain't we?"  Steve laughed and stuck out his hand.  "Steve Rogers."The guy took his hand in a firm grip."Bucky Dyun.""Bucky?""Yeah, unless you want to call me Pok Chi like my ma does.""Bucky it is."Steve Rogers doesn't know much about Chinese culture when he makes a wrong turn in Chinatown.  But a chance meeting gives him not only a new friend, but an entry into a whole new world.  The more he learns from Bucky, the closer they get, until Bucky is so much more than a friend.  But when a Chinese gang goes after Bucky and his family, Steve knows he needs to stand up and make sure the man he loves doesn't lose everything.





	Gweilo Gongfu

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2017 Stucky Big Bang.
> 
> First of all, thanks go to [Brenda](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda), whose [post](http://brendaonao3.tumblr.com/post/158418776444/trappingsofzed-brendaonao3-noxfauna) about a skinny!Steve who managed to be a kickass athlete and martial artist gave me the idea for this story, and [OriginalCeeNote](http://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote), who then [encouraged me](http://downwarddnaspiral.tumblr.com/post/158421585836/trappingsofzed-downwarddnaspiral) to actually write the damn thing.
> 
> Further thanks to [potofsoup](http://archiveofourown.org/users/potofsoup) for not only making sure I got the Chinese culture stuff right, but also creating not one but TWO lovely pieces of art for the story. Thanks to m. butterfly for her usual bang up beta job and general cheerleading. And thanks to [cassandrasfisher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandrasfisher) for her lovely art.
> 
> And a last thanks to the organizers of the Big Bang for all the effort they put into making such a great event work.

Steve's first mistake was getting lost in Chinatown. Though that wasn't entirely his fault. The WPA officer in charge of giving him assignments had decided he wanted sketches of Little Italy and Chinatown, and Steve had always had a lousy sense of direction in that part of Manhattan.

Steve's second mistake was stumbling into a dead-end alley while looking for something picturesque to draw. He should have known better. Whether in Chinatown or Brooklyn, dead-end alleys tended more to garbage cans and dead rats than anything that could be considered picturesque.

Steve's third mistake was not turning around when he found the dead-end alley was occupied by three burly Chinese guys surrounding one not-at-all-burly Chinese guy. Though in retrospect, that wasn't so much a mistake as the fundamental nature of his character, because Steve Rogers never backed down from a fight, not when the cause was just and the enemy was a bully. And the three burly guys taking on one skinny one were definitely bullies. 

So he dropped his sketchbook and pencils and waded in, getting in a couple of good punches before he took a sock to the jaw and was knocked down to the dirty, snow-covered pavement. He thought that was it, that he and the skinny guy were dead. But then there was yelling and a flurry of movement, and the three bullies were running and the skinny guy who'd been surrounded was standing over him and yanking him to his feet.

The guy's grip was warm and firm, and Steve could feel the strength of his arms as he was pulled to his feet. Steve's gaze scanned up, and was met by a lush mouth and dark brown eyes. He froze for a moment, surprised to find such beauty in a lousy, stinking alley. But then he shook off the paralysis, reminding himself that he wasn't in a queer bar in Brooklyn, that most men didn't take kindly to other men staring at them. Instead, he focused on his concern.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked his unlikely saviour.

That lush upper lip curled, and the guy gripped his hair and gave a frustrated yell in what Steve assumed was Chinese.

" _Lei yau mou gaau cho ah_!"

"I'm…sorry. I don't know Chinese."

"Of course you don't know Chinese. Because you're a stupid _gweilo_ ," the guy yelled, his English sounding more like it came from the lower East Side than the South China sea. "I said, 'Are you crazy?!' You're the one who got knocked down and you're asking me if _I'm_ okay? You must be crazy. Or stupid. Or both."

"Hey!" The attraction Steve had begun to feel was swept away by a wave of indignation. "And besides, you were up against three of them. You must be crazy, too."

"Nah, I had 'em on the ropes."

That made Steve laugh, 'cause how many times had he said that to his ma when she'd had to patch up his face after he'd gotten into a fight? The skinny guy, though, just looked even more offended.

"It ain't funny, shrimp."

"Hey, I ain't a shrimp." Steve stopped laughing and started thinking that maybe he'd taken the wrong side in this fight. "And anyway, I'm nearly as tall as you are."

"I'm Chinese." The guy thumped his chest. "I supposed to be short. You're a _gweilo_. And you're definitely a shrimp for a _gweilo_."

"What the hell's a _gweilo_?" Steve knew when he was being insulted.

"You're a _gweilo_. A dumb white guy."

"Hey! Did I call you a dumb Chinese guy?"

"No." The guy finally hesitated, and Steve could see the indignation start to bleed out of him around the edges. "But what else am I supposed to call a scrawny little fucker who stood up to three fighters from the Hip Sing Tong to help out a stranger?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"But _I_ know what I’m doing."

"How do you know I don't?"

"Because Old Cheung handed you your ass." And yeah, the guy wasn't wrong, there. He frowned and Steve found himself being examined closely by those sharp brown eyes. "Why _did_ you stand up to three fighters from the Hip Sing Tong?"

"Three guys beating up one are bullies, and I don't like bullies." Steve pulled himself up to his full height. "I don't care if they're Chinese or Italian or Irish like me."

"Huh." The guy stuck out his chin and crossed his arms. "Bet you get beat up a lot."

"I can look after myself." Steve bristled. "And how about you? You go around taking on three fighters from the Hip Sing Tong on a regular basis?"

"Sure," the guy said, and then he gave Steve a big grin. "I don't like bullies either."

"Jeez, we're two of a kind, ain't we?" Steve laughed and stuck out his hand. "Steve Rogers."

The guy took his hand in a firm grip.

"Bucky Dyun."

"Bucky?"

"Yeah, unless you want to call me Pok Chi like my ma does."

"Bucky it is."

"Seriously, Steve, you got heart, but no technique. I gotta figure Old Cheung ain't the only one who's handed you your ass." 

"I'm not that bad, am I? I go to the boxing gym in Brooklyn Heights. Whenever I can afford to pay the fee, that is." He didn't mention that he didn't often have the money to go to the gym, or that even when he found someone willing to spar with him, it usually ended up with him flat on the canvas and blood streaming from his nose.

"Boxing's no good for someone your size. You go in against someone bigger and stronger and you're going to end up on your ass. And let's face it, pal, most guys are bigger and stronger than you."

"So, what would you suggest?"

"Don't get into fights."

"I've tried that." Steve shrugged. "It never takes."

"Well, then…" Bucky hesitated, as if he was about to suggest something that was either illegal or insane or both. "How about _gongfu_?"

"What's that?

"Chinese boxing."

"And how am I supposed to learn that?"

This time, Bucky didn't hesitate at all. "I could teach ya. From one shrimp who doesn't like bullies to another."

Steve couldn't quite believe what he'd heard. He felt like there'd been a fundamental shift in the universe, a change in what his future could be.

"You'd do that?"

"Yeah?" Bucky sounded like he didn't quite believe he was suggesting this either.

"Are you supposed to do that?" It wasn't like Brooklyn wasn't full of secret societies. He figured Chinatown was no different. And Bucky teaching a _gweilo_ Chinese boxing would probably go over about as well as one of the Italian mob teaching an Irish republican how to knife fight.

"Probably not, but it ain't like I ever do what I'm supposed to at the best of times. My Uncle Wong has a martial arts school. He'd probably let us use the back room every once in a while."

"I don't know. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"No offence, Steve, but you look like you're made outta trouble." And damned if Bucky didn't sound a lot like every teacher, priest and beat cop he'd ever run into. "Whaddaya say?"

"Aw, what the hell." Because, really, what did he have to lose?

"Great!" Bucky looked honestly pleased that he'd agreed. "C'mon. I'll take you to Uncle Wong's now. He can patch you up, and maybe I can teach ya somethin'."

Steve recovered his sketchbook and pencils and followed Bucky through Chinatown, hoping he wasn't making a mistake trusting someone he'd only just met. And hoping he wasn't setting himself up for heartbreak, spending time with someone as attractive as Bucky.

Uncle Wong was shorter than Steve, with a permanent scowl, steel-grey hair and neatly-trimmed beard. Steve wasn't sure how old he was—the best guess he could make was older than forty and younger than sixty—and he was dressed in what looked to Steve like a long silk dressing gown. ("A _cheuhng saam_ ," Bucky told him later. "And don't get the wrong impression. He only wears that when he's been trying to impress someone. Probably had some Chinatown bigwig visiting before we got there. Most of the time he's in trousers and shirt sleeves, like the rest of us.") And it turned out he wasn't just Uncle Wong who ran a martial arts school; he was also Dr. Wong, an actual traditional Chinese doctor. The martial arts school backed onto his clinic, though it wasn't like any doctor's office Steve had seen before. There was a desk at the front surrounded by shelves and shelves of jars full of dried plants and fish and animals and even bugs. At the back were two curtained alcoves with padded tables. 

Steve sat at the front desk as Uncle Wong took his pulse, clucked over the bruise on his jaw, poked and prodded at his crooked back, and made him breathe in deeply until his asthma kicked in. Then he turned to Bucky and let loose a stream of Chinese. ("It's all Chinese, but our dialect is Cantonese," Bucky had told him on the walk there. " _Gwongdungwa_ if you don't want to be a _gweilo_ about it.") 

Bucky listened, then turned back to Steve.

"Uncle Wong says it's a miracle you're alive. That even for a _gweilo_ you're in shit shape. Ow!" Bucky rubbed his head where Uncle Wong had just hit him hard enough that Steve had heard the crack, then yelled at his nephew in _Gwongdungwa._. Yelling seemed to run in the family. "He says I shouldn't swear. Or call you a _gweilo_. That it ain't polite."

"Tell him it's okay. I wasn't offended."

Uncle Wong gave him a dubious look that left Steve wondering about just how much English he knew, and then delivered another long speech in _Gwongdungwa_ , his nephew nodding along.

"Okay," Bucky finally said when Uncle Wong finally finished talking. "He says he's got some herbs you can take for the asthma, and he wants to do some acupuncture for your back. He says it'll help with the pain. You'll sleep better."

"How did he know I have—" Steve started to say.

"He always knows everything," Bucky interrupted him. "When I was sixteen I nearly dislocated my shoulder in a fight. I tried to hide it 'cause I'd promised my ma I'd stop fighting, but he figured it out looking at me from a block away."

"And what's acupuncture?"

"It's a Chinese thing. He'll stick needles in ya, get your _chi_ flowing."

"Needles?" Steve tried not to look as alarmed as he felt.

"Don't worry. He does it to me all the time. It won't hurt." Bucky paused. "Much." He grinned at Steve, and that's when Steve knew for sure what a little shit Bucky was.

Steve waited as Uncle Wong put together a paper bag full of different dried herbs, and then Bucky wrote down instructions on how to brew them. ("Put 'em in a pot on the stove full of water and boil 'em down for half an hour. Keep it in the icebox and drink a glass of it every morning. It'll smell bad and taste worse, but it'll help.") Then Steve took off his shirt and lay face down on one of the padded tables while Uncle Wong stuck needles down his spine and Bucky told him when to breathe in and out. Bucky was right. It didn't hurt. Much.

Steve tried to pay for the treatment and herbs with what little he had in his wallet, but Uncle Wong waved him away and yelled at Bucky some more.

"Don't worry about it," Bucky said. "He said you helped out family, so that makes you family, too. And family doesn't pay."

Steve thanked Uncle Wong, and got a huff and a slight lessening of his scowl in response. Steve took it as a sign that maybe Uncle Wong liked him just a bit. Which was fine, which was great, because Steve definitely liked Uncle Wong. Though not nearly as much as he was beginning to like Bucky.

Bucky took him back to the martial arts school, through the main chamber into a smaller room at the rear with mirrors on one wall and a mat on the floor.

"So what are you going to teach me first? Punching? Kicking?"

"Nah." Bucky gave him the grin Steve was fast beginning to realize meant Bucky was going to fuck with him. "You're gonna learn how to fall."

"I can already fall." Christ, he was practically a genius at falling.

"No, you can't. I saw how you went down when Old Cheung hit you. Like a sack of fucking Irish potatoes."

And who knew there was a right way to fall? To break the impact without breaking a bone. To go down so you could get back up again quickly. Bucky showed him how to break a fall with an out-flung arm. How to shoot his legs out when falling forward. How to tuck his chin into a shoulder roll. It was a Goddamn revelation, is what it was.

And then Bucky sent him home, Steve promising to practise what he'd learned, and Bucky promising they could do it all again next week.

Even after getting into the fight, Steve felt great, felt energized. Uncle Wong's treatment seemed to have really worked, and Bucky's lesson had lit a fire inside him. And in Bucky, Steve felt like he'd finally met someone who understood him, who felt like he did about how life should be lived. And if he happened to be gorgeous, well, Steve was an artist. Appreciating beauty was his job. 

Steve slept better that night than he had in years, his dreams filled with dark eyes and a wicked grin.

* * *

A week later, Steve found himself back in Chinatown, in front of Uncle Wong's clinic. He spent a good fifteen minutes pacing out front, his hands jammed into his pockets against the cold, his breath steaming in the air in front of him. The passing of a week had half-convinced him that the connection he'd felt with Bucky had been an illusion, that Bucky hadn't really meant it when he'd said he'd teach him more _gongfu_ , that there wasn't a hope in hell that they'd become friends, let alone something more. That if he went inside, Uncle Wong would frown at him and chase the presumptuous _gweilo_ out of the building.

He was building up the courage to just go inside already, when Bucky threw the door open and gave him a look.

"What the hell are ya doin' out here, Steve? I was waiting for ya."

"I wasn't sure you'd really…" He trailed off, because now that he saw Bucky, he wasn't quite sure why he'd doubted his new friend's sincerity.

"You really are a stupid _gweilo_ ," Bucky said, and then put an arm around Steve's shoulders in a way that Steve enjoyed far too much. "C'mon, before I let all the cold in. Uncle Wong wants to take a look at you again, and then I'll give you your next lesson."

"What's the lesson this time? More falling down?"

"Nah. You'll see."

Uncle Wong took his pulse again, and made him breathe deeply again, and asked a bunch of rapid-fire questions, with Bucky translating. 

"He wants to know how you're doing. If the herbs did any good."

Steve thought back to the past week, and he realized his breathing hadn't been as bad as usual this week. He hadn't had an asthma attack, not even when he'd had to walk half way across Brooklyn for a sign-painting job because he'd lost his train fare.

"Yeah. I'm doin' better. And my back didn't hurt like it usually does, either. You were right, though."

"About what?" Bucky frowned at him in concentration.

"Those herbs smelled bad and tasted worse."

Bucky laughed, an abrupt sound, as if Steve's answer had surprised him. Uncle Wong frowned, and then started putting together another packet of herbs. He talked rapidly to Bucky as he used shiny metal scoops to fill the white paper bag.

"Uncle Wong says he'll do an acupuncture treatment after today's lesson." And then Bucky led him back to the same room as last time.

Bucky stood across from him, his gaze fixed on Steve, head cocked to one side, as if he was trying to decide what Steve was ready for. After a long minute, he finally nodded his head and moved in closer to Steve.

"Grab me," Bucky said.

"Grab you?" Steve felt his pulse speed up, felt his face go hot. He looked down, hoping he didn't look like as big an idiot as he felt.

"Yeah, grab me," Bucky said, his lips peeled back from his teeth in a wicked grin. Not for the first time, Steve considered that Bucky was unfairly attractive. "Like you were attacking me."

Those instructions didn't help the way Steve felt in the least. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath and tried not to think about what Bucky would feel like under his touch. Instead, he thought of all the guys who'd grabbed _him_ over the years, all the ways he'd been attacked, the things he'd like to be able to defend himself from. He finally grabbed the front of Bucky's shirt like that stupid Joe Roberts had grabbed him last month. 

Before he knew it, he was flying through the air and landing on his back.

"At least I know you were paying attention last week," Bucky said, as he looked down at him with a smile that went straight to Steve's heart. "That was a perfect shoulder roll."

"How did you do that?" Now that he'd overcome the shock of being thrown, Steve was curious about how Bucky had managed it. 

"It's easy. If you know how." Bucky gave him a toothy grin, and then offered him a hand up. Steve let himself be pulled to his feet, taking a simple pleasure in the feel of Bucky's hand in his, the rough calluses on his palm, the warmth of his skin. "Now grab me again the same way," Bucky said, and Steve had to shake himself to pay attention. "I'll take it slow this time."

Steve concentrated on watching what Bucky was doing as he demonstrated the move three times. He showed him how he grabbed Steve's shirt and threw one foot out before he dropped. How he used Steve's weight against himself. He showed him how he could go with the momentum of the throw so he ended up sitting on Steve and ready to strike. 

Then it was Steve's turn. He got Bucky down on the second try. By the tenth try, he managed to end up sitting on Bucky. By the twentieth try, he could do it all without thinking about it.

"This is great!" Steve said on the twenty-first try, his legs straddling either side of Bucky's chest. Bucky beamed up at him.

"You're a natural, Steve." He rolled to one side, and Steve went with it, letting himself fall off Bucky, then pushing himself to his feet as Bucky stood as well. "Ready to do some more?"

"Yeah." Steve grinned at Bucky, and not just because he was enjoying the lesson. He could now see a time when he wouldn't be at the mercy of Joe Roberts and every other bully in Brooklyn. And more than that, he was enjoying the unexpected intimacy of the lesson. It wasn't like boxing, where the only time you touched your opponent was when you punched him. This kind of fighting had you get close to your opponent, had you get your hands on him. He definitely wanted to do more. "Let's go."

Bucky showed him wrist grabs, how to break free when someone grabbed one wrist or two. Steve felt the sweat bead on his skin from the effort of what they were doing, saw the glow of sweat on Bucky's skin. Every time Steve broke free, Bucky gave him a smile or a friendly punch on the arm.

"Not bad for a _gweilo_ ," Bucky said, putting his arm around Steve's shoulders, and Steve couldn't help leaning into Bucky. But then Bucky went and spoiled it all by saying, "Now, let's work on your strength."

Steve felt himself deflate, felt all the closeness they'd built up in the last hour evaporate. Because the throw and wrist grabs, he could do those. They took smarts, not muscle. But he couldn't build up muscle he didn't have. Bucky was going to realize what a weakling he really was, was going to regret ever having offered to teach him. 

Bucky must have seen his disappointment, because he frowned at him in concern.

"Trust me. I ain't gonna get you to do anything you can't."

"I can't do much."

"Can you do a push-up?"

Steve gave a bitter laugh and shook his head.

"Come on," Bucky said. "My sister can do one push-up."

"Then your sister is stronger than me."

"I want to see what you can do. Get down on the ground, hands no more than shoulder-width apart. Now keep your back straight and straighten your arms."

Steve tried to follow Bucky's instructions, but his arms felt like limp noodles, his body like a flopping fish.

He heard a stifled chuckle, and looked up to find Bucky covering his mouth with his hand while his shoulders shook.

"Yeah, okay. My sister _is_ stronger than you."

Steve felt his face go hot and the anger he was so used to feeling roar through his body. He felt so stupid for trusting that Bucky would see him as more than a skinny useless little runt. 

"Fine." He pushed himself up to his feet and headed for the door, only to have Bucky grab his arm.

"Don't be like that, Steve."

Steve pulled his arm away free and faced down Bucky.

"What's the point? I'm never going to be strong enough. You're just wasting your time."

Bucky crossed his arms and stared back at him, all amusement gone.

"You done?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then listen to me for a minute. I'm sorry I laughed. I gotta figure you've been laughed at a lot, and I know it's lousy. People laugh at me all the time, too. But I also figure you ain't a quitter. And if you don't quit, you're going to get stronger. You're never going to be as strong as some idiot who has the good luck to be six feet tall and built like a circus strong man, but I guarantee you'll get stronger. I'll make sure you do. But you ain't gonna get better at anything if you quit."

Bucky glared at him. Steve crossed his arms and glared back. He hated being laughed at and he hated failing. But Bucky had him pegged right: he hated quitting more than anything.

"Okay." He let out a huff of air from his lungs, dropped back down to the ground, and got into the best push-up position he could. "Tell me what I'm doing wrong."

And Bucky did just that. He told Steve how to tighten his muscles in his body, where to put his hands so he didn't strain his shoulders, how to keep his butt down and in line with his back. And after a few false tries, he managed to pump out one decent push-up.

"That's perfect! Now let's try sit-ups."

Sit-ups proved a bit easier. With coaching, Steve managed five not-bad sit-ups before Bucky stopped him.

"C'mon. I feel like I'm just getting the hang of it," Steve said.

"If I let you keep going, you're going to strain something, and then you won't be able to do anything at all. Here's what you're going to do. Tonight, you're going to do one perfect push-up and five perfect sit-ups. You do that every morning and every evening. And when you think you've got that under control, you add one push-up and five sit-ups. Do we have a deal?"

"Deal," Steve agreed.

"Great. Now let's go see what Uncle Wong has planned for you."

What Uncle Wong had planned was more needles. Not just the needles he'd done last time, but ones for breathing, for digestion, to help him not get sick. Steve felt like a giant pin cushion by the time Uncle Wong finished with him. Bucky stayed and talked to him for the half hour Uncle Wong left him with the needles stuck in him, telling him about his parents and his sister, and his job at a warehouse and his favourite movies and the Chinese-only dance hall he liked going to on a Saturday night. Steve talked, too. Told Bucky about his art and how the WPA let him do art for a living. He told him how he'd always got into fights, even when he was a kid, whenever he saw anything that didn't sit right with him. 

The only thing he didn't tell him about was his parents. He never mentioned his ma, or how brave she'd been, or how she'd died. And he didn't talk about the father he'd never known, lost in a war that was nearly over when he was born. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was just that he didn't want to see any pity on Bucky's face. 

When Uncle Wong came back to pull all the needles out of him, he felt like he'd known Bucky forever, like he was the best friend he'd never had. And the way Bucky was smiling at him, he hoped maybe he felt a bit the same.

"Thank you," Steve said to Uncle Wong when the last needle was out and he could sit up. "Hey, Bucky. How do you say thank you in _Gwongdungwa_?" Uncle Wong raised his eyebrows slightly. 

"In this case, _m goi_. If you were thanking him for a gift, it'd be _do jeh_."

" _M goi_ ," Steve said, and gave Uncle Wong a formal bow like he'd seen Bucky do.

" _M sai_ ," Uncle Wong said with a gruff nod.

"That's you're welcome. Sort of," Bucky told him. 

Steve grinned back at both of them.

* * *

Every Wednesday, Steve would take the train to Manhattan and meet Bucky at Uncle Wong's clinic and school. Bucky would teach him more _gongfu_ and give him more exercises. Uncle Wong would give him herbs and do an acupuncture treatment.

In between his visits to Chinatown, he'd exercise and practise whatever new techniques Bucky had shown him. Bucky had been right about sticking with the exercise. Steve worked out every morning and every evening, and he was getting better all the time. He could do ten push-ups ("Perfect push-ups!" Bucky assured him) and fifty sit-ups. He was still skinny, still had asthma and a heart murmur and all the rest, but for the first time in his life, he was starting to feel strong, to feel like he could look after himself.

As the winter began to loosen its hold on the city, Steve found he was learning more than _gongfu_. Bucky and Uncle Wong started to teach him Chinese, _Gwongdungwa_. Just a few phrases at first: hello ( _neih hou_ ) and goodbye ( _joigin_ ) and no problem( _mou man tai_ ). But when he picked those up quickly, they started throwing more at him, until he could tell Uncle Wong how he was feeling without Bucky translating. With every new phrase Steve learned, he swore Bucky would grin at him even wider. 

And he didn't stop there.

"How does Chinese writing work?" Steve asked one Wednesday, as Uncle Wong was checking his pulse yet again. He nodded at the scroll given place of honour on the wall behind Uncle Wong's desk. "Are there letters?"

"Not really. Every character is a different word."

"So, you have to memorize them all?" Steve couldn't imagine how that would work.

"Pretty much. Some characters are easier than others. Some are pictographs; the character for mountain looks like a mountain. There are sets of strokes that are used across characters, so once you've memorized those sets you can use them when you need to. And you can combine characters to make new characters, like a metaphor. The character for roof over the character for woman means peace. Learn about 3,000 characters and you've got yourself a working vocabulary."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"Nope." Bucky laughed. "It's a pain in the neck. Drove me crazy as a kid. You've just got to practise the characters over and over again until they flow."

Uncle Wong was frowning at them both, and shot a series of questions at Bucky that were answered so quickly that Steve couldn't follow more than the occasional word. But at the end of it all, Bucky turned to him with a smile.

"Now you've done it. He wants me to teach you calligraphy." Bucky gave him a toothy grin.

"How to write?"

"Nah, it's more than that. Calligraphy is an art. It takes people years to get good at it. But he says since you're an artist, you should learn."

That was a challenge Steve couldn't turn down, so from that point on, every Friday he'd show up at the clinic after Uncle Wong had shut it down and Bucky would teach him another couple of characters.

It was fucking difficult, remembering the order of strokes for each character. And calligraphy wasn't like oil painting. It was like learning how to paint all over again. He had to hold the brush differently, perpendicular instead of at an angle. He had to move the brush differently, using his arm as well as his hand. It was all he could do not to make the characters look like they'd been drawn by a demented toddler.

But after his first few lessons, he started to enjoy it. He liked the process of it, grinding a stick of ink on an ink stone and adding just the right amount of water. He liked using the brush, trying to get each character to flow effortlessly on the paper. And during the week, he'd carry around scraps of paper and a pencil, and practise row upon row of whatever characters he was learning that week. After a while, he finally started getting better at it. Not _good_ exactly, but better.

"Don't worry, Stevie," Bucky told him one evening after he'd nearly thrown the brush across the room in frustration when he'd turned the latest characters he was learning into a blotted mess. "It took me years to get any good at this." Bucky clapped a hand on his back, and Steve had to try his damndest not to lean into the warmth.

Then, one Friday, Steve showed up for a calligraphy lesson to find Bucky scrawling out a sign in English for the clinic.

"Uncle Wong is hoping to attract some of the tourist trade. Give them sample treatments. Maybe they'll tell their friends."

"The only thing they'd tell their friends about _that_ sign is how ugly it is," Steve had choked out. As good as Bucky was at Chinese calligraphy, this sign was a disaster. The writing was on an uneven slant, and the letters were all different sizes.

"Think you can do better?" Bucky waved the brush at him.

"I know I can. It's how I make money between WPA payments." He reached out for the brush. "Gimme that."

Steve started on a fresh sheet of Bristol board, and soon had a sign for "Wong Chi Fong, Doctor of Chinese Medicine, Available for treatments of back pain, stomach ailments and women's conditions." He even painted a small cartoon portrait of Uncle Wong in his formal cheuhng saam in the bottom corner of the sign, then stood back to admire his handiwork.

"Not bad." Bucky nodded in approval. "For a _gweilo_ ," he added. Steve socked him in the shoulder with a laugh.

Uncle Wong thanked Steve for the sign when he was at the clinic the next week, and started sending him more work. The grocery store down the block and the restaurant across the street started getting him to do English signs for them. Uncle Wong picked up a few Caucasian clients a week, more than enough to cover the cost of paying a local kid to act as translator, and the store and restaurant soon had a few more white customers as well. Soon, Steve had more sign work in Chinatown than he'd ever had in Brooklyn, and by charging each store a fair rate, he soon had enough money to start saving a little bit for the first time ever. He never charged Uncle Wong, though. He figured doing signs for the clinic was a small way to pay him back for everything Steve owed him.

Then, one Friday, an older gentleman arrived at the clinic, a pad of watercolour paper under one arm, a leather case held in the other hand. He watched as Steve finished up a sign for the grocer, nodded his approval, and then offered to teach Steve brush painting. Steve accepted, and soon he was coming into Chinatown on Monday nights for private lessons with Master Liu, using some of his new sign-painting money to pay for the privilege. ("That's a really fucking big deal," Bucky told him after Steve had accepted the offer. "Master Liu hasn't taken on a new student for ages, and he's never taught a _gweilo_. Proves Uncle Wong and him know how fuckin' good you are." Bucky had looked a little proud and a little in awe, which made Steve both pleased and uncomfortable. ) 

But more than the calligraphy, more than the painting, the best thing Steve was learning about was what made Bucky tick. He was learning what kind of jokes would make him laugh until he crinkled his nose and threw back his head. He learned how serious he looked when he was concentrating on a task, whether it was teaching Steve an especially complicated move in _gongfu_ or a twenty-stroke character he knew Steve was going to fuck up. He noticed he always had an issue of Popular Science or Scientific American rolled up and stuck in his back pocket. When Steve would ask him about it, he wouldn't shut up about some new discovery in astronomy or a feat of engineering. ("Howard Stark is a fucking genius," he told Steve more than once, and Steve figured if someone as sharp as Bucky thought that, it must be true.) 

With every new thing he learned about Bucky, his affection for him grew, from that first flash of attraction, to friendly affection, to something that went beyond anything Steve had felt for another person. Not that he was going to reveal any of that to Bucky. Ever. Steve hadn't seen anything that hinted that Bucky felt the same way, that he liked men the way Steve liked men. He wouldn't give up this friendship for anything.

Then, one Wednesday, after Steve had finished his lesson and Uncle Wong had stuck more needles into him, Bucky stopped Steve at the door of the clinic with a hand on his elbow.

"Have you tried _dim sum_?" he asked Steve.

"Have I tried touch heart?" Steve said, trying to work out from a direct translation what the hell Bucky was talking about. His stomach turned, with hope that maybe Bucky felt the same way he did after all and this was his way of showing it, mixed with panic that he didn't feel that way at all. But Bucky undid all his imaginings with his next words.

"Dumplings," Bucky said. _Dim sum_ is Chinese dumplings." Bucky laughed. "What the hell did you think I meant? God, the look on your face."

"I was just confused," Steve said, trying to cover up for anything he might have revealed of his feelings. "And no, I haven't tried _dim sum_."

"Well, come on, then." Bucky took firm hold of his elbow and ushered him outside. "I've been failing in your Chinese education, not taking you for _dim sum_. You're gonna love it."

Bucky led him through the winding, bustling streets of Chinatown, finally leading him down a crooked street that seemed little more than an alley. He stopped in front of a glass-fronted restaurant with the sign Nom Wah Tea Parlor over top of a bunch of Chinese writing. Bucky opened the door and waved Steve inside, where the place was a riot of sound and colour. Every table was crowded with men. Some of them were playing a game that involved laying tiles in complex patterns on the table, the tiles clacking as they were placed with a flourish. Everywhere in the restaurant bustled waiters, some carrying steaming pots of tea, some pushing rickety metal carts piled with stacks of circular wooden containers they'd deposit on tables after brisk negotiation with their customers. 

As he and Bucky moved further into the restaurant, toward a small empty table at the back of the room, the clacking of tiles and the sound of men talking gradually trailed off. Steve looked out, and found every face turned to them, some looking puzzled, some hostile, but none what he would have called friendly. Steve felt like he had as a kid, when he'd crossed the wrong street in Sunset Park and found a line of Italian boys staring him down. He tensed, getting ready to run or fight.

Beside him, Bucky sneered and let loose with a stream of shouted _Gwongdungwa_ far too fast for Steve to pick up more than the odd word. Then, with a sniff, he pushed Steve to the empty table. There was a pause in the room, as if everyone was holding their breath, then the whole room sighed, and the talking and clacking and bustling of waiters resumed.

"What did you say?" Steve whispered as they sat down and a waiter plunked two tea pots and some sticks down in front of them.

"I told them you were okay, for a _gweilo_ , and that they should mind their own fucking business."

A burst of laughter exploded from Steve, and he felt himself relax, even as the rest of the room was obviously pointedly ignoring him.

He sat back to observe as a waiter rolled a metal cart past them and Bucky reached out to snag two of the wooden baskets and two teapots.

"Pour me some tea, Steve," Bucky said. "I'll teach you how to use chopsticks and introduce you to _har gow_."

Turned out chopsticks weren't too hard to use, once you knew the trick of keeping the bottom stick stationary, and _har gow_ were translucent dumplings filled with shrimp, and they were delicious. So were the _char siu bao_ and _siu mai_ and _jah leung_ , all of it washed down with fragrant jasmine tea. He and Bucky talked and laughed, and Steve drank in the atmosphere of the place, aching to draw the waiters and the customers and the birds in cages, and, most of all, Bucky, smiling at him as he ate and explained how the tile game, Mah Jong, worked. Steve vowed to bring his sketchbook the next time he came. Because there was definitely going to be a next time.

Just about the time he'd reached the point where he was full enough to burst, he felt a burning at the back of his neck that told him someone was staring at him. He turned to find a burly man standing at the door of the restaurant, a man who left quickly once he noticed Steve staring back.

"Was that…" Steve started to ask Bucky.

"Old Cheung?" Bucky completed. "Yeah." He frowned at Steve, and no wonder. Steve hadn't even considered that they could run into the jerks who'd ganged up on Bucky the first time they'd met, but it stood to reason. It wasn't like Chinatown was _that_ big.

"How bad is that?"

Bucky shrugged, and then stuffed the last piece of _jah leung_ into his mouth.

"I never asked before. Why did they try to beat you up, that time?"

Bucky didn't answer right away. He swallowed his food, took a noisy sip of tea, refilled his tiny tea cup, drank some more, and only then did he look back at Steve.

"I told you before that Old Cheung and his pals belong to the Hip Sing Tong."

"Yeah. Is that like a gang?"

"They call themselves a benevolent society, but yeah, they're a gang. And they keep fighting with the On Leong Tong."

"So, you're in the On Leong Tong?" Steve felt a wave of disappointment swamp him, to think he'd just taken one side in a gang war.

"I'm not in _any_ tong. And that's the problem." He grimaced. "Both tongs keep trying to recruit Uncle Wong, to have him train only their fighters. But he always says he'll train anyone who comes to him, whether they belong to a tong or not."

"Oh!" Steve brightened. Because Bucky _and_ Uncle Wong were exactly what he'd thought they were. _Idealistic idiots_ , he could hear his ma say, but that was okay. All his favourite people were idealistic idiots, from FDR on down. 

"Jeez, you really are a stupid _gweilo_ , aren't you? No one else would look happy to find out their friend is in the crosshairs of two gangs."

"I thought Uncle Wong told you not to call me a _gweilo_."

"I'm going to regret ever introducing the two of you, aren't I?"

They finished the last dumplings and drank their tea, then Steve talked Bucky into letting him split the check. (It was cheaper than his favourite diner in Brooklyn, and the food was twice as good, so Steve considered it a win.)

As Bucky pushed open the restaurant's door and they emerged onto the street, Steve braced himself, fully expecting Old Cheung and a pack of his ugly pals to be waiting for them. But there was no one but a scruffy stray cat and a couple of men clearly on their way home from work.

After that day, trips to Nom Wah became part of his routine, along with the calligraphy and the painting lessons and Uncle Wong's treatments. Bucky taught him more and more _Gwongdungwa_ , and soon he could order at Nom Wah himself, and tell a slightly dirty joke that Steve only figured the waiters laughed at because his accent was so atrocious. In fact, except with Bucky and Uncle Wong, anything he said in _Gwongdungwa_ got him a laugh before it got him reply. He got used to it after a while, because in all other ways, Chinatown was becoming home in a way Brooklyn hadn't been since his mother died. He knew people there: the shopkeepers he made signs for, the waiters and the other regulars at Nom Wah. He went everywhere with his sketchbook, and he'd done portraits for more people than he could count, handing in some to the WPA, but giving more to their subjects so they could send them back to China, to families they hadn't seen in decades. When he walked through Chinatown, he no longer got suspicious looks or frowns from strangers, but smiles and _neih hou_ s from people he knew. And Chinatown was where Bucky was. In spite of his vow to never tell Bucky how he felt about him, he knew he'd long since lost his heart to the man. A smile from Bucky made Steve's face go warm with pleasure, and every time he threw an arm over Steve's shoulder, Steve felt like there was no better place to be in the whole world. 

Then, one June evening, he and Bucky emerged from Nom Wah with the sunlight fading from the sky but the day's heat still lingering in the bricks and pavement. That day's lesson had left Steve feeling sore but pleased with his progress, and Uncle Wong had seemed satisfied with his breathing, which was better than ever. He was feeling content like he never had. But then they cleared the dog leg on Doyers Street, and Bucky stopped abruptly in front of him, his hand raised to keep Steve in place. Steve looked up to see Old Cheung standing there, a club in his hand, and five other men fanned out behind him.

"Shit," Steve said.

"You can say that again," Bucky said. 

"Should we run?" Steve asked as Old Cheung scowled at them. Not that he ever liked running, but six on two did seem excessive odds, even with Steve's new fighting skills.

"Nah," Bucky said with a measured drawl. "No offence, Steve, but you can't run for shit. They'd just catch us, and then we'd be out of breath when we had to fight them."

"You're right." Steve sighed, and settled into the loose fighting stance Bucky had taught him, ready to move quickly.

"I'm always right." Bucky stood beside him, fists raised, ready to fight.

" _Puk gaai, gweilo_ ," Old Cheung said, _Drop dead_ , his attention focused on Steve.

" _Diu neih, cat tau_ ," Steve shot back. _Fuck you, dickhead_. Steve had known he'd eventually get into a fight in Chinatown—he got into fights _everywhere_ —so he'd gotten Bucky to teach him how to swear in Cantonese and had practised that phrase over and over until his tones were perfect. The look of shock on Old Cheung's face made Steve very glad he'd gone to that effort. Then Old Cheung swung his club at Steve's head, and the fight was on.

It was the first time Steve had been in a fight since he'd started working with Bucky, and it was amazing what a difference the training made. He could see how opponens were going to attack before they did, and manage to not be there. He could land a punch, and make it hurt the other guy. He even managed to throw one of the bigger guys who came at him, using his own momentum against him and sending him sprawling against a bunch of garbage cans.

He made his own mistakes, the worst of which was leaving his guard down just long enough to take a hit on the nose. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and Steve could feel the blood trickling down his face and down the back of his throat, but he'd been punched before. He shook it off, then landed two good blows in the kidneys of the bastard who'd punched him. The fight didn't last much beyond that. Old Cheung barked out an order and then his fighters were scrambling to pick each other up and scuttling down the street.

"Holy shit, Steve," Bucky said with a shocked laugh. "Ya look like a mess."

"I didn't get my ass handed to me, though, did I?"

"Nope. You did good!" Bucky examined him closely. "I can't let you get on the subway like that, though. You'll scare the women and children."

"I suppose I can clean up at Uncle Wong's." He wiped at his face, wincing when his hands came away red.

Bucky looked at him carefully, then seemed to come to a decision.

"I know someplace closer. C'mon." He waved Steve forward, and headed down the street in the opposite direction that Old Cheung and his men had gone.

"Where?" Steve jogged to catch up to Bucky.

"My place."

"Don't you live with your folks?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." Bucky talked about his family, his mom, dad and sister, but Steve had never thought he'd meet them. He certainly didn't wanted to meet them looking like this, covered with blood and with what felt like a really spectacular black eye starting up. He didn't want them to think he was a bad influence, but it seemed he didn't have any choice.

Bucky led him a few blocks away, then into a building sandwiched between a barbershop and a restaurant. They trudged up four flights of stairs, Steve's eye and nose throbbing with every beat of his heart. Then, before he could back out, Bucky had opened a door down the hallway and was pushing him inside.

"Hey, Ma," Bucky yelled. "I'm home. And I brought a friend."

As apartments went, it wasn't much different from the ones in Steve's building. They entered into a living room with a sofa, a few chairs, and a big wooden cabinet radio. A hallway that Steve assumed held the bedrooms opened up to the right, and the clatter of dishes came from a doorway to the left that must be the kitchen. The only thing that would have been out of place in Sarah Roger's home was what seemed to be an altar just inside the door, with a statue of a fierce, bearded Chinese man with a spear, a pyramid of apples, and three fragrant incense sticks stuck in what looked like a pot of sand.

Steve hadn't finished looking around when there was bustling from the kitchen, and a woman who could only be Bucky's mom emerged. She was a tiny, fierce-looking woman with Bucky's eyes, her black hair pulled into a tidy bun. She was wearing a neat if worn housedress with an apron over top.

" _Neih hou_ ," Steve said, giving her an awkward wave, acutely aware of how much of a mess he must look.

"Dyun Pok Chi, what have you been up to?" she said, her hands on her hips as she looked Steve over. Mrs. Dyun barely came up to Steve's chin, but he suddenly felt much smaller than her. He felt like he had as a boy when he'd come home with a bloodied face and skinned knees and his ma would look at him with the mix of concern and frustration he could see in Mrs. Dyun's expression now.

"It wasn't our fault, Ma," Bucky said from behind him. "They jumped us."

"Hmph," was all Mrs. Dyun said before turning her attention fully to Steve. "You must be the Irish boy Bucky's mentioned.

"Yes, ma'am. Steve Rogers." Steve held out his right hand automatically, realized it was crusted with drying blood, then hid it behind his back. "Nice to meet you, ma'am."

"Hmph," she said again, looking extremely unimpressed. "You're even skinnier than I expected. We'll get you cleaned up and then I'll make you soup."

"That's okay—" Steve started to say. He wasn't even sure he had room for another bite after their Nom Wah dim sum.

"I'll make you soup," Mrs. Dyun said in a way that told him he had no choice in the matter. Steve knew when he was beat, and one glance in Bucky's direction told him Bucky did as well. "Grace, bring me a cloth and the peroxide!" She yelled down the hall. A minute later, a teenaged girl appeared in the hall holding a cloth and a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, her eyes going wide as she noticed Steve.

"Is this Steve?" she asked Bucky. "Are you Steve? I kinda half thought Bucky was making you up. Because seriously, what kind of a white boy wants to learn _gongfu_ and brush painting?"

"Grace." Mrs. Dyun's voice was low but firm.

"Sorry, am I talking too much? Ma says I talk too much, but I can't help it. Especially when I meet someone interesting. And you're the most interesting person I've met all week. All month, even."

Steve laughed, and immediately winced as Mrs. Dyun started working on his face, wiping away the blood and testing to see if his nose was broken. (It wasn't. Steve had had his nose broken before, several times, and this didn't feel like _that_.)

And that's how it went, Mrs. Dyun efficiently if disapprovingly making sure he was okay as Grace chattered and kept his mind off how much he hurt, and Bucky watched over them all. When Steve was cleaned up, with a tea towel full of ice chipped from the ice box held against his rapidly swelling eye, Mrs. Dyun put a pot of broth on the stove, and then made up small bowl of dumplings, her hands effortlessly placing filling she'd pulled from the ice box into each translucent wrapper before expertly twisting it closed. Into the pot, she threw the dumplings, a handful of noodles, and green onions that Grace had chopped without interrupting the flow of her words one bit. When she was satisfied it was done, Mrs. Dyun put bowls of soup in front of both Steve and Bucky, and scowled at them until they started eating.

Grace finally ran out of things to say, and Mrs. Dyun broke her silence.

"Ah Chi says you're an artist."

Steve paused for a moment before answering, trying to figure out who Ah Chi was until he realized she meant Bucky.

"Yes, ma'am. I do work for the WPA. And I paint signs. I've done signs for some of the stores in Chinatown." Steve had the realization that he desperately wanted Mrs. Dyun to approve of him, to think he was good enough to be friends with Bucky.

"So I've heard." Her tone and expression were completely neutral. Steve couldn't tell if she was impressed, disapproving or completely indifferent about his answer. "Your family are in Brooklyn?"

"I live in Brooklyn. I've got no family, ma'am." Steve winced, realizing he'd never talked to Bucky about his family. But he felt like he owed Mrs. Dyun more of an explanation. He looked down at his soup, poking at a dumpling with his spoon. "My ma was a nurse in a TB ward. She got hit with the infection and never recovered. My dad died in the Great War. I never really knew him." He was matter-of-fact, like he always was when he was forced to explain his lack of family, but he still felt a lump in his throat that he could barely swallow around. When he finally looked up, Mrs. Dyun was looking at him with an expression that was still firm, but seemed to have softened around her eyes.

"You have family now," she said in a tone that would allow no contradiction. "You will come for dinner on Sunday. Every week."

"Mama, Steve might not—" Bucky said, as Steve was blurting out, "I don't want to impose."

Mrs. Dyun snorted again, as if they were both being ridiculous.

"You _will_ come, Steve. Ah Chi, you will make sure he comes." Steve didn't know what the consequence would be if they didn't follow her orders, but he _did_ know that he didn't want to find out. "Your father will want to meet Steve, too."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve and Bucky said almost simultaneously.

"This is great!" Grace said with a laugh. "Steve, I think you're going to be a much better brother than Bucky."

"Watch it, squirt," Bucky said to his sister, though Steve could see a smile behind his eyes.

"Or what?" she shot back at him, a cocky smile on her face that made her look so much like Bucky that Steve couldn't help but smile. 

"Or this," Bucky said, and then leaned in to where she was sitting beside them and elbowed her in the ribs.

"Hey!" Grace defended herself, and then attacked her brother with her own sharp elbows, the two of them laughing and yelping.

Steve looked over at Mrs. Dyun. She was watching her children with an expression that mixed mild annoyance and great affection. Steve took a spoonful of broth and tried to swallow around another lump that had formed in his throat, suddenly missing his own mother so damn much. He hadn't felt this much, hadn't let himself feel this much, since Sarah Roger's funeral. He'd been too busy trying to survive, to find and keep a job, and to make rent and have enough money left over to feed himself. But watching what Bucky had with his family made him aware of the emptiness his mother's death had left inside of him. He'd been surviving, but he knew now that he hadn't quite been living.

Mrs. Dyun turned her gaze to him, and Steve felt her affection turned on him, as if she could see his vulnerability. 

"You'll have to excuse my children," she said, her eyes knowing. "They can be a little boisterous."

"No. It's okay," Steve choked out. "They're okay."

"We're better than okay." Bucky broke off an attack and turned to Steve. He threw an arm around him, pulling Steve toward him until his chin was resting on Steve's shoulder. "We're the best!"

Steve couldn't help but laugh, his melancholy mood burst by Bucky's own delight with the world.

The evening flew by too quickly, ending with Steve promising Mrs. Dyun that he would be back for Sunday night dinner, and Grace giving him a quick hug at the door and declaring that he really was a much better brother than Bucky. Bucky stuck out his tongue at her in return, and then took Steve by the elbow.

"I'm going to walk Steve to the subway, Mama. I'll be back in a while."

Steve started to protest that he didn't need an escort, but he looked in Bucky's eyes and all his words dried up. He couldn't remember another human being looking at him quite like that. It wasn't like the love his mother had shown him. It wasn't like the lust he saw in other men when he was feeling flush and foolish enough to risk a visit to a queer bar. It was something altogether new, and he could feel the tips of his ears go pink with the knowledge of the look, his hope that maybe it meant Bucky felt the same way about Steve that Steve felt about him. But he also felt fear, a fear that Mrs. Dyun might recognize what seemed to be growing between him and Bucky, rescind her invitation to dinner, and banish him from her home forever. The same fear that had kept him from ever sharing the fact that he liked kissing boys as much as girls with his own mother. But nothing like that happened. Mrs. Dyun and Grace saw them out the door with a smile and a wave, and then he and Bucky were descending to the street, arm in arm.

Bucky stopped at the corner, bringing up Steve short, and gave him a concerned look.

"You never told me," Bucky said. "About your mom and dad. I didn't know you were an orphan."

"I'm not an orphan! I'm 19," Steve said, letting his indignation flare up to cover for the fragility he'd been feeling since he'd made his confession to Bucky's ma.

"It don't matter how old you are. If you got no parents, you're an orphan." Bucky took a firm hold on his arm. "But don't worry. I think Mama is ready to adopt you." 

Bucky gave him a wide smile that lit warm glow in Steve's heart, and then kept up a steady stream of conversation, telling Steve how annoying his sister could be and how his dad was working tonight at the restaurant where he was head cook and how his mom was the best, wasn't she? Steve let Bucky's words wash over him, concentrating on the feel of his hand on Steve's arm and the look that Bucky kept giving him.

When they reached the entrance to the subway, Bucky released his grip on Steve's elbow, and Steve felt momentarily bereft. But then Bucky leaned in and hugged him, and Steve felt again that all was right with the world. Bucky had touched him before, hugged him before, but tonight his touches, his hugs felt different to Steve. 

"You take care of yourself, Stevie," Bucky whispered into his ear, his voice a low rumble. His voice and the nickname set off a flutter in Steve's stomach. (No one had ever bothered to give Steve a nickname before.) "Don't get into any more fights, and I'll see you on Friday."

And then, so lightly that Steve thought he might have imagined it, Bucky brushed his lips lightly across Steve's ear. Before he could react, Bucky released him and pushed him toward the subway stairs.

"You should get going, Steve." Bucky's voice was husky, his dark eyes hooded with a look Steve recognized from queer bars and back alleys, and gave Steve hope he wasn't alone in the way he felt. "Before I do something I'll regret."

Steve felt his throat dry up along with his words, and he could only nod, heading for the stairs, only to look back once. Bucky was standing at the top, watching him leave with an expression of affection and longing and loss that Steve knew was reflected on his own face.

Steve wasn't sure how he made it back to Brooklyn. His skin was sparking and his ears were buzzing and he barely registered where he was. He bumped into people who seemed to appear from nowhere around him, got on the wrong train twice, and then was halfway to Coney Island on the N train before he even noticed. That night, he lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, listening to the creaks and sighs of the building around him, and wondering if Bucky was having the same trouble sleeping that he was.

He woke up with a start on Thursday morning as the sun came through his window. His eyes felt gritty from too little sleep, and yet he felt more awake than he ever had, the sparking of his skin enflaming him even more than it had the night before. All he could think of was Bucky. The glint in his eye as he'd dropped Steve at the subway, and the feel of his lips brushing against him, and how many hours he had to wait until he could see him again. (Too fucking many, that was for sure.)

He couldn't concentrate on anything all day. He had a meeting with his WPA officer, and the man had to tell him three times how much he liked his new style, and how he'd like more landscapes using it. (Steve had begun to merge his own style of line drawing with the more flowing brush painting Master Liu was teaching him, and he was pleased with the results himself.) The cashier at the deli where he bought a sandwich for lunch had to shake him to finally get him to hand over the quarter he was paying with. And Mrs. Ryan, his landlady, had to pull on his arm to get him to say hello. 

He made it through another nearly sleepless night, and another day of distraction. He started and abandoned three different sketches, misspelled almost all the words on a sign he'd promised to the local butcher, and finally flopped on his bed, counting down the minutes on his dad's old watch until he could decently leave for Chinatown and his calligraphy lesson and Bucky.

Before it was time to leave, he carefully shaved in the cramped shared bathroom down the hall. Bill Knight from the apartment beside his saw him coming out with his shaving kit and towel.

"Ya got a hot date, Rogers?" he asked him with a laugh.

"What's it to you, Knight?" he threw back, trying to will away the blush he felt creeping up his throat.

"I feel sorry for any poor girl who gets stuck with you," Knight threw over his shoulder as he headed down the stairs.

Steve had to bite down hard on the impulse to tell Knight that it wasn't a girl he was getting ready for.

Back in his room, his put on his best pair of trousers, his second-best shirt, and carefully knotted his favourite tie, the blue one that didn't have any stains and wasn't at all frayed and may just have been the same colour as his eyes. Then he headed out.

This time, he paid careful attention on the train, making sure he made his transfer to the 2 train and getting off at the Chambers Street station.

The clinic was dark as he approached. Uncle Wong always closed early on Friday afternoons, which was why they'd started using it for his calligraphy lessons. Steve almost thought he'd arrived too early, but then the door opened up and there was Bucky, looking for all the world as if he'd been waiting for Steve.

Steve stuttered to a stop a few feet from the entrance, his heart hammering in his chest, and his breath wheezing uncomfortably in the back of his throat, as if he was having an asthma attack like he hadn't done since he'd met Uncle Wong and Bucky.

"Ya comin' in or not?" Bucky finally asked him, his voice more tentative than usual, as if he were no more certain of what was about to happen than Steve. 

Steve nodded, and brushed past Bucky as he held open the door. His skin seemed to catch fire at the places where they touched.

Inside the clinic, Steve could see that Bucky had set up Uncle Wong's desk for their usual lesson. There was the ink and ink stone, a pot of brushes, a bowl of water, and a stack of paper. He stared at the desk, Bucky behind him, and with a rush of shame began to think he'd misread the situation horribly. Bucky wasn't like him, didn't have the same desires. His skin didn't burn with the thought of his friend touching him. Steve nearly whimpered, his eyes prickling with grief for the loss of something he'd never had and never would.

"Steve?" 

Bucky's voice was soft, and he was so close to Steve that he felt the breath of the words on his neck. Steve bent his neck down and shook his head, not wanting to look at Bucky, not wanting to have the desire that had burned through him so strongly that the last two days turn to ash.

Bucky took another step, and now Steve could feel the heat radiating from his body, feel the electric current that was running between them. Bucky took hold of Steve's right arm, and Steve did whimper then, the sound pulled from his throat unwillingly.

Carefully, so carefully that Bucky must think he was made of brittle glass, his friend turned him until they were facing each other. Steve kept his eyes on the floor, not wanting to see the disgust that must be in Bucky's eyes. But then Bucky grasped his chin and raised his face, and no, disgust was not the emotion Steve saw in his eyes. There was fear there, and apprehension, and, miraculously, the same heat that was running through every sinew of Steve's body.

"Oh, Stevie," Bucky whispered, then he moved in closer, the closest he possibly could, his mouth brushing over Steve's, his lips soft and unbearably gentle.

Steve's own fear vanished at the touch. He reached out, his hand on Bucky's neck, pulling him harder into the kiss. He didn't want gentle. He needed far more than gentle. He moaned as their teeth and lips clashed, as Bucky grabbed his shirt front and pulled him closer.

Almost as soon as they'd begun, Bucky pushed him away. Steve felt a renewed spike of fear, but Bucky just locked the door of the clinic and pulled the blinds down, then grabbed Steve by the wrist and pulled him through the clinic, grabbing a small glass pot off a shelf as they passed and stuffing it in his pocket. He pulled Steve into the martial arts school, through the main room and into the chamber where Steve had learned how to fight.

He didn't fight now as Bucky slammed him against the far wall, taking his mouth again and grinding his body against Steve's. Bucky's body was warm and solid, and Steve could feel his dick, hard and insistent against his own. It wasn't enough.

He hooked one leg around Bucky's, and toppled him onto the mats, landing on top of him hard enough to drive an "oof" out of Bucky.

"Shit," Bucky said between kisses. "You play dirty, Stevie."

Steve didn't say a word, just straddled Bucky and grinned down at him. Bucky grinned back, and before Steve knew it, he'd flipped their positions, his thighs on either side of Steve, his hands pinning Steve's arms above his head.

"You play just as dirty," Steve said, and then rolled his hips up, slowly and sinuously, earning a moan from Bucky.

"Do that again," Bucky demanded, his eyes gone dark with lust. So, Steve did, the sparks that grew between them making his own neck arch back in pleasure, making him need more.

He broke Bucky's hold on his hands, needing to touch, needing so much more. He reached up and unbuttoned Bucky's shirt, slowly, one button at a time, revealing a bare chest heaving with desire. He drew his fingers down Bucky's skin, watching as Bucky leaned against him in pleasure before shucking off his shirt. Bucky reached out and slowly pulled off Steve's tie, the blue silk unravelling with a shushing sound, then unbuttoned Steve's shirt with nimble fingers. He bent down, one hand on either side of Steve's face, and bit down the side of his jaw, then took his lips in a kiss with a hint of teeth, his chest brushing against Steve's. 

They were skin to skin, but it still wasn't enough. Steve reached out and scrambled at Bucky's fly, pushing his trousers out of the way and pulling out his dick, already hard and leaking at the tip. He stroked Bucky, tentatively first, then harder, watching as Bucky's eyes closed, as his breath came harder in his chest, like he was the one with asthma. 

"Shit, Stevie," he said, then rolled away, and stood, shucking off pants and underwear and everything, so he was standing over him, naked and glorious with it. Steve shed his shirt, then lay back, hands behind his head, not quite believing that he was allowed to see this, that Bucky wanted him as much as he wanted Bucky. 

"You're a bit overdressed, Stevie," Bucky said, his voice sounding tighter than usual.

"What are ya gonna do about that?" Steve asked, and stretched out in invitation, feeling his own dick strain against his fly, but willing to wait for Bucky to release it. He didn't have to wait long. In a moment, Bucky was back on top of him, teasing fingers making short work of his trousers, and then there was nothing at all between them.

Bucky lay down beside him, just a whisper of air between them, and ran one hand down Steve's length, from throat to chest to hip, settling just beside Steve's dick. He ran his thumb up the ridge of Steve's hip bone, and Steve thrust forward, seeking more heat. Bucky leaned in to take Steve's bottom lip in his teeth, just as his hand finally wrapped around Steve's dick, and Steve hissed in pleasure at the firm touch.

He turned toward Bucky, throwing one leg over his hip as he reached out for him, let his own hand drift down Bucky's body, lingering on the notch of his throat, on a nipple, on his belly, before finally taking hold of his dick, his grasp mirroring Bucky's.

They moaned into each other's mouths, hips thrusting, bodies writhing, and Steve could feel his pleasure cresting, building impossibly, until he knew it wasn't going to take much more to set him off. But as he gave one more thrust, Bucky pulled away, leaving him gasping and bereft.

"Buck," he said, the name a warning, a plea. 

As he watched, Bucky reached out for his trousers and retrieved the small glass pot he'd grabbed from one of the clinic's shelves. He held the pot up between thumb and forefinger and gave Steve the sort of grin he imagined crocodiles gave their prey.

"Is that what I think it is?" Steve asked.

"Depends on what you think it is," Bucky said, still showing all his teeth, and Steve wanted nothing more than for him to drag those teeth down his throat.

"What I think is that you need to slick me up and get your dick inside me," Steve said, his need for Bucky stripping him of any lingering reserve.

"Jesus, Steve," Bucky said, the smile dropping from his face to be replaced by an expression of shock. "The mouth on you."

"I just know what I want." Steve gave Bucky his own crocodile smile. There was more than one predator in this room. "Do you?"

"Yeah," Bucky said, his voice dropping down to a whisper. "I guess I do."

"Then take it."

And Bucky did. He took Steve in a bruising kiss, their bodies moving together until Steve thought his skin must be made of nothing but sparks and hunger. Then he pushed Steve onto his back, one leg over his shoulder, and began to open him up with the salve from the glass pot, his clever fingers broaching Steve's defences until both of them were whimpering with need.

"C'mon," Steve gasped out, rolling his hips as Bucky's fingers flexed inside him, igniting his body so that Steve was sure there was nothing left of him but flames.

Bucky needed no further urging. He withdrew his fingers, leaving Steve momentarily bereft, then, with a firm stroke of a hand up Steve's thigh, pushed into him, his dick so much more satisfying than his fingers.

He pushed in slowly, his face a study in concentration, and Steve felt himself coming undone. When Bucky bottomed out, their bodies as linked as they could get, he held there for a moment, his gaze locked on Steve's, one hand gently pushing Steve's hair off his forehead. Steve strained up, his mouth capturing Bucky's, the kiss deep but restrained, the calm before the storm. Then, when he'd taken what he needed from Bucky's mouth, he pulled back.

"Move," Steve said, the word a quiet demand he underscored with a roll of his hips.

Bucky moaned in answer, then he followed the order, pulling back and thrusting back into Steve. At first his movements were slow, excruciating, and Steve brought his other leg up, linking his ankles behind Bucky's back, meeting his thrusts and feeling his own dick trapped between them. But as Steve's pleasure flared, Bucky's rhythm sped up. Steve hung on to Bucky tightly as his skin crackled and his nerves quivered. He clenched his eyes tightly shut so he could concentrate on the sensation of having Bucky drive into him, and saw firecrackers and sparklers explode behind his dark eyelids.

He could tell by Bucky's breathing, by his movements, that he was nearly at the edge, and Steve chased after him. Then Bucky reached a hand between them, his firm hand on Steve's dick speeding up Steve's progress, until his pleasure surpassed Bucky's and he was coming in pulsing waves.

His body throbbed around Bucky inside of him, and Bucky whined with the feel of it, pounding into him harder, driving Steve's now too-sensitive nerves to the brink of pain and then back to pleasure. Then Bucky was coming too, his movements going from smooth to stuttering, clutching Steve even more tightly to him.

Steve opened his eyes and found Bucky looking down at him, dark eyes wide, mouth open in wonder. Steve gripped him harder with his legs, grabbed his hair with one hand, and brought him down for a kiss that was as gentle as their last actions had been bruising. Then he let him go, freeing Bucky to pull out of him.

"Jesus, Bucky," Steve said, holding him close and rolling so they were on their sides, chest-to-chest, sticky and messy and satisfied. "Where'd ya learn to do that?"

"Fella I knew. A sailor from Shanghai." Bucky grinned and pushed Steve's hair back before planting a kiss in the middle of his forehead. "I taught him English. He taught me…other things."

"I'm up for learning some other things myself," Steve said.

"Give a guy a minute, would ya?"

Steve gave him a minute, but not much more. He felt like he was incapable of keeping his hands off Bucky, and Bucky didn't seem to mind one bit, showing him a few more things the sailor from Shanghai had shown him. 

But even young as they were, they couldn't go forever. They tenderly cleaned each other up, then pulled on their clothes, Bucky taking his time, tying Steve's tie for him, his gaze constantly drifting up to Steve's eyes, a smile on his face that was partly smirking, partly beaming. Steve didn't suppose he looked much different. He felt smug and satisfied, loving and loved.

They barely talked. Steve felt like there were no words that could express the way he felt, so he let his body talk for him, his hand petting Bucky's back, his lips dropping kisses on Bucky's mouth, in his hair.

"We should go," Bucky said, after he'd looped his arms around Steve and given him a deep, longing kiss that threatened to undo them both all over again. "Or we'll never make it out of here."

"Would that be the worst thing?" Steve asked, leaning in to nip at Bucky's lower lip.

"No, but Uncle Wong might be a bit shocked if he came to open the clinic tomorrow and found you in a compromising position with his nephew."

And because that was a situation not worth thinking on, Steve reluctantly pulled away. 

"I'll see you on Sunday," Bucky said. Then, when Steve looked at him in confusion, "You're still coming for dinner, right?"

"Oh. Right. Sunday dinner." Steve felt a blush creep up his neck as he thought about spending an evening with Bucky's family after what they'd done here tonight.

"You can't chicken out on me. Mama will kill us both if you do. And Grace hasn't been talking about anything but you for the last two days, so Baba is curious to meet you."

Steve had never been submitted to the ritual of meeting the family before. It wasn't like any fella at a queer bar was going to take him home to mom, and no girl had ever given him the time of day, let alone wanted him to meet the parents. He felt like he was stumbling into a strange new world, one he was ill-equipped to navigate. But he couldn't disappoint Bucky, or the formidable Mrs. Dyun.

"Okay. I'll be there Sunday."

"Great!" Bucky smiled like he'd just won the daily numbers game, then took Steve in a crushing hug that he didn't mind one bit and gave him one last, lingering kiss.

Bucky walked him to the subway. They were used enough to walking through Chinatown arm in arm, neither of them thinking anything of it, but this night they walked the streets with several careful inches between them, both suddenly conscious of revealing too much. 

"I'll meet you right here on Sunday," Bucky said at the top of the stairs to the subway. "Five o'clock sharp."

"I'll be here."

"You better. I'll come drag you out of Brooklyn myself if you disappoint my mom."

"I'd never disappoint your mom. She scares me, just a bit," Steve admitted.

"That shows you're sensible," Bucky said with a laugh, then reached out and tousled Steve's hair, the first touch he'd allowed himself since they'd left the clinic. Steve tried desperately not to lean into the touch. "No one messes with Mama. Now, get out of here." He gave Steve a gentle push, and then Steve found himself moving down the steps, a rush of warm air from the subway blowing back his hair. He paused at the bottom of the stairs to look back, but Bucky was already gone.

* * *

On Sunday, Steve put on his very best shirt and his blue tie, smoothing down his hair in front of the mirror in his hallway, wondering if he should have gone to a barber's for a trim yesterday.

It was stupid to be so nervous, he kept telling himself, but that didn't help one bit.

Before he descended into the subway, he stopped at grocery store and bought the least-battered bouquet of flowers he could find for under a quarter. It didn't feel right, going to Bucky's home empty-handed. 

Bucky was waiting for him in the same place he'd left him Friday night, hands in his pockets, shuffling eagerly from foot to foot, and crackling with a nervous energy. When he caught sight of Steve coming toward him, he smiled, his expression open and warm, everything Steve could have hoped for. Steve felt himself smiling in response, his breath catching just a bit in his throat as he noticed how handsome Bucky was. He was such a lucky guy.

"You're late," Bucky said, as he grabbed Steve by the elbow.

"Only five minutes," Steve said, glancing at his watch as Bucky pulled him down the street. "I did have to come all the way from Brooklyn. And I stopped to get your ma these." He waved the flowers at Bucky, earning another grin.

"She'll love 'em," Bucky said without breaking his stride. Steve had to scramble to keep up with him. "I'm pretty sure she already loves you."

"I don’t know." Steve thought about the flash of maternal affection Mrs. Dyun had shown him, and hoped Bucky was right, and that he wouldn't be a disappointment to his father.

They arrived at the landing before the Dyun apartment, Steve a little out of breath, heart pounding in his chest and blood roaring in his ears. He could feel a nervous thrum pulse down his arms to his trembling hands.

"Maybe this ain't such a good idea," he said, staring at the door in front of him as if it were a crowd of bullies he had to push past, his jaw jutting out in defiance.

"It's only my family." Bucky slapped him on the back. "They ain't nothin' to be scared of." Then he dragged Steve forward and opened the door.

"We're home!" he called, and then there was a flurry of activity, Grace bounding out from her bedroom, and Bucky's parents emerging from the kitchen.

Mrs. Dyun was as serious and sharp-eyed as she'd been the last time Steve had been here, taking Steve's flowers with a solemn bow, and passing them to Grace. Grace was as boisterous, keeping up a non-stop stream of chatter as she retrieved a vase for the flowers and arranged them on the table. 

Bucky took Steve's elbow and brought him over to his dad, Steve trying his best not to balk like a dray horse that had been asked to pull too great a load, the nerves he'd been feeling all day suddenly flaring up a hundredfold. 

"Baba, this is Steve."

"Nice to meet you, sir," Steve said, and stuck out his hand.

Steve hadn't known what to expect from Mr. Dyun, but he'd have recognized him as Bucky's dad even if he'd seen him on the street. He had the same dark eyes, though with more laugh lines at the corners, and the same strong jaw, though softened a bit with time. He was more serious-looking, though, more like his wife than his son.

"It's good to meet you, son." Mr. Dyun's handshake was firm, his hand rough with callouses and nicks that must have been from the kitchen knives at the restaurant where he worked. His accent was more like his son's than his wife's, pure Lower East Side. Mrs. Dyun's English was perfect, but had the hint of a Chinese accent behind it. "Ah Chi tells me you're an artist, that you're studying with Master Liu."

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Dyun broke into an unexpected grin that shocked Steve almost as much as his next words.

"How is the old son of a bitch, anyway?"

"Dyun Wai Man!" Mrs. Dyun said, scandalized, and delivered a stinging slap to her husband's arm.

"I took painting lessons from that miserable cuss for years when I was a kid, and he never had a kind word to say to me."

"That's 'cause you weren't very good, Baba," Bucky said, a sassy grin on his face. "Steve's a genius. Ain't ya, Steve?"

"Um," Steve hesitated, not sure what to say, but deciding that he liked Bucky's dad as much as his ma. Maybe even more. "Master Liu is a great teacher." He looked at Mr. Dyun's smiling face, considering, then added, "But he is a bit of a miserable cuss if he doesn't think my brush is flowing smoothly enough."

"Ha! I knew it." Mr. Dyun patted him on the back. "We're going to get along fine, kid."

The evening passed in a whirlwind of laughter and food and stories told. The Dyuns pulled out an increasingly embarrassing series of stories about Bucky, which made Bucky blush and laugh and nudge Steve's foot under the table. Steve started answering some questions in _Gwongdungwa_ , which earned him an approving look from Mrs. Dyun that he found himself basking in.

"You really are a bit of a genius, aren't you, kid?" Mr. Dyun said, making Steve duck his head and blush. Mr. Dyun had clearly decided his name was "kid," and though that familiarity might have made him bristle coming from anyone else, he found it a comfort from Bucky's dad, a sign he'd been accepted.

After dinner, he and Bucky and Grace cleaned up in the kitchen, and then Grace dragged the two of them to the door of the apartment.

"Bucky and Steve are going to take me for ice cream." She looked sternly at the two of them. "Aren't you?" Steve could only nod in agreement.

It was a beautiful night, warm but not yet with the scorching heat of full summer. Grace led them north, to the border of Little Italy, and a place that sold Italian ice cream. They got their orders and then started drifting back toward the Dyuns' apartment, licking their dripping cones and talking about whatever came into their heads. Steve had never felt quite so comfortable with anyone before, though he did find he had to keep restraining himself from reaching out and squeezing Bucky's shoulder or from running his fingers through his hair. 

"Why do your parents call you Grace, but Bucky Ah Chi?"

"Ah Chi is a nickname, kinda," Bucky said. "Chinese parents will stick Ah in front of their kid's personal name. I'm Dyun Pok Chi, so they call me Ah Chi."

"But Grace…" Steve started.

"What my brother is not telling you," Grace broke in, "is that I like my English name better than my Chinese name and Mama is fine with using it. But my brother," she smacked Bucky in the shoulder, hard enough to make him wince, "doesn't like his English name and she refuses to call him Bucky."

"Okay, so what's your Chinese name?" he asked Grace. 

"Pok Sum. So if you want the full mouthful, I'm Grace Dyun Pok Sum. And he's—"

"Don't," Bucky said firmly, glaring at his sister like he did when he was teaching Steve how to write a twenty-stroke character.

Grace stuck out her tongue at her brother and turned to Steve, who was suddenly very interested in what Bucky's full name could be.

"Don't you dare," Bucky said, and tried to grab his sister. She danced out of the way with a laugh.

"James Dyun Pok Chi."

"Oh." Steve was mildly disappointed. He'd been expecting something much more embarrassing. Something like Wilbur. Or Clarence. Or Delbert. James was pedestrian in comparison. Unless… "Hey, does anyone call you Jimmy?"

"Not if they know what's good for them." Bucky glared at his sister even more.

"Okay," Steve said, then, because he couldn't resist, "Jimmy." 

"That tears it!" Bucky lunged for him. Steve stepped back, holding his ice cream cone out of the way as Grace laughed at the two of them. "And you," he said, pointing at his sister with his cone as he got Steve in a one-armed headlock. "I'll deal with you later."

"Promises, promises," Grace said, sticking her tongue out a him, before putting it to better use on her ice cream cone.

They finished their ice cream before they got back to the Dyuns'. Steve went back up to say goodbye, getting a crushing hug from Grace, a pat on the back and a "See ya, kid" from Mr. Dyun, and an extracted promise to come back next Sunday from Mrs. Dyun.

"I'm taking Steve to the subway," Bucky said, then led him out onto the street. Bucky took his arm, just as he had on—was it only Wednesday?—when the attraction between them might have been no more than hope on Steve's part. Steve couldn't help but lean into Bucky's warmth, not caring at all how they might look.

"You got a lesson with Master Liu tomorrow?" Bucky asked as they walked toward the subway, their pace leisurely, as if neither of them wanted to hurry their parting.

"Same as always."

"And you'll come to the school on Wednesday? And Friday?"

"Same as always. Why?" Steve nudged Bucky with the elbow Bucky was holding. "You afraid I'm going to run out on you, now that I've met your whole family?"

"Nah." Bucky pushed back against him with a grin. "You're crazier than they are. I don't figure you'll let them drive you off. I just…" He trailed off and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to run out on me, now that you've met my family."

"Idiot." Steve wished they weren't on the street, wished they were somewhere private so he could push Bucky against a wall and kiss him as thoroughly as he deserved.

"I must be, being in love with you."

The words were casually delivered, but they still made Steve stop suddenly, pulling out of Bucky's grip, his mouth open in an O of surprise. 

"Don't joke about that," Steve said, not even daring to hope, needing to protect himself, just in case. He glanced quickly around them, glad to see no one around them, no eyes that might see too much, no ears that might overhear their confessions.

"It's not a joke." Bucky looked straight at Steve, the expression behind his eyes deadly serious. "I love you, ya stupid punk."

Steve took a deliberate breath before responding.

"That's good. Because I love you, too, ya dumb jerk."

They both stood there for a moment, staring at each other. Steve wasn't quite sure what Bucky could see in his expression, but Bucky's was a mixture of shock and pleasure and growing smugness. Finally, he broke out in a wide grin that Steve couldn't help but mirror.

"Shit," Bucky said, then pulled Steve once again in the direction of the subway. "I should get you home, before I do something to ya that's gonna get us arrested."

Steve was almost feeling reckless enough that he thought risking arrest might be just about worth it, but he let Bucky tug him down the street.

"See ya, Wednesday," Bucky said, giving him a firm hug.

"See ya, Wednesday," Steve returned, and only reluctantly let go and headed down the stairs.

He didn't look back, just let the feeling of Bucky's gaze on his neck give him a warm glow that took him all the way to Brooklyn.

* * *

As it turned out, Steve didn't have to wait until Wednesday to see Bucky. He spent Monday sketching down at the docks, prepping for a series on the stevedores for the WPA, then headed to his usual class with Master Liu in the evening. The sketching had gone well, but Steve found his thoughts flying in every direction during his lesson, always coming back to a pair of laughing brown eyes and a wicked mouth.

After Steve had ruined his third painting in a row by letting his brush linger too long on the paper and creating a giant blot of ink instead of a delicate wisp of cloud, Master Liu finally kicked him out.

"Come back next week, when your mind is on the work," Master Liu said, and showed him the door.

Steve emerged onto the street to find Bucky leaning against a lamppost, giving him a look that absolutely should have been illegal. Steve found an answering heat building in his own body, frustrating when there was nothing they could do about it.

"What are you doing here?" Steve might have snapped out the words, but Bucky's expression didn't change one bit.

"I'm trying to pick up a famous artist. You seen anyone like that around here?"

"Jerk," was all Steve could manage.

"I may be a jerk, but I'm a jerk with a key." Bucky broke into a grin, and he pulled his hands out of his pockets, twirling a key on a silver ring around one finger.

"So, you've got a key. So, what?"

"It's a key to a friend's apartment. A friend who's working a nightshift and is willing to let me use it, as long as I don't, and I quote, make a mess. I was thinking me and the famous artist could, ya know, do some life drawings."

"Jesus, Buck," was all Steve could say.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes to the life drawing suggestion," Bucky said, the little shit.

The apartment wasn't far, thank Christ. Bucky dragged him into a building on the next block, up three flights of stairs, and then into the apartment that the key opened.

Steve only had a moment to hope that sound wouldn't carry too much through the walls before Bucky had him pinned against the door, their bodies grinding together, Bucky's teeth catching his lower lip.

Steve felt like his skin was going to go up in flames, like his heart was going to burst in his chest, like there was going to be nothing left of him when Bucky finished with him but ash. And he didn't care one fucking bit.

He roughly pushed Bucky back, just far enough that he could unbutton his shirt, his fingers clumsy with need. There was a ping as one button flew off and the wooden floor, but both of them ignored it. Bucky started dragging him through the apartment, four hands eagerly pulling off shirts and unbuttoning flies as they went, leaving a trail of clothing behind them. When they got to the bedroom, it was Steve who pushed Bucky back onto the narrow bed, and climbed on top of him, kissing him absolutely rotten until they were both panting and hard.

Bucky put one hand on his chest, pushing him back, and with the other hand scrabbled at the night stand beside the bed and retrieved a glass pot like he'd used at the clinic.

"Your turn," Bucky said with a grin that showed too many teeth.

"You sure?" The words came out of Steve's throat harsh and breathless.

"Yeah," Bucky said with no hesitation, then wrapped his legs around Steve's hips and pulled him closer, grinding their dicks closer together.

"Jesus," Steve breathed out, before Bucky grabbed his hair and pulled him down for a rough kiss, then pushed him back and stuck the glass pot in his hand. Steve only hesitated for a moment before he began to move.

He started at Bucky's lips, nipping and kissing them lightly until Bucky was writhing with need. Then he slowly moved down his body, tongue and teeth on jaw and throat, on shoulder and chest as he let his hands drift down Bucky's flank. He lightly bit at Bucky's hipbone, letting one hand stroke the soft flesh on the inside of his thigh, and revelling in the leashed power he could feel in Bucky's muscles. One bite, and another, and only then did he finally reach for Bucky's dick, holding the base as he licked all the way to the tip, smiling as Bucky moaned and thrust to meet him.

"You're gonna kill me, Steve," Bucky panted out.

"Nah," Steve said, letting a wolfish grin take over his face as he looked up at Bucky, his lush lips parted and a flush on his chest. "I'm just gonna make you think you're gonna die." Then he put his mouth to better use and took Bucky's dick in his mouth, slowly sucking in until he couldn't take any more and Bucky had thrown his head back, his throat exposed and vulnerable.

He moved slowly up and down on Bucky's dick, not trying to bring him off, just working at making him feel good.

"Fuck, Steve," Bucky gasped out.

Steve laughed around the dick in his mouth, then pulled off for a second.

"Soon," he said.

"Fuck you," Bucky said, looking up at him defiantly, then throwing his head back as Steve took him slowly back in his mouth. Bucky made more sounds, but they definitely weren't words anymore.

Steve reached out for the glass pot and slicked up his fingers, letting them slide down from Bucky's balls until he finally, slowly, breached Bucky's body. He slid one finger into him, two, then three, while still sucking on his dick.

"If you don't get in me soon, I'm gonna come," Bucky said, his jaw clenched, every muscle in his body tight.

Steve didn't respond, but he did pull off his dick, his pace unhurried, giving the base a squeeze. One final scissoring movement, and he pulled his fingers out of Bucky and then slicked up his own dick. Bucky craned his neck to look at him, his eyes dark with defiant need. Without breaking their eye contact, Steve pushed into him, slowly at first, then, when he could feel Bucky's muscles ease, with a violent push that drew a huff of breath from them both. Steve leaned in and bit at Bucky's shoulder, then gave another rolling thrust, feeling Bucky's dick caught between them, hard and leaking.

"Harder, Stevie," Bucky demanded, his eyes half closed and rolling back as he pushed against Steve.

Steve didn't need any more urging than that. He kissed at Bucky's mouth, more a bite than a caress, then began to thrust harder, his own pleasure escalating with Bucky's. It was like he was on the Cyclone, going higher and higher, anticipation clenching in his stomach. He chased the anticipation, thrusting harder when Bucky reached up and grabbed a handful of hair, the slight edge of pain making the pleasure even greater. When he came, it was like he'd crested that first summit of the Cyclone and was plummeting down, wind in his hair, roar of the rails in his ears. Bucky followed him, both of them falling off the edge. Steve felt giddy, felt spent, felt like he could do it all again. 

He collapsed on top of Bucky, sticky and sweaty, his dick still half inside Bucky, Bucky's hands still clutching at his hair. Steve turned his head so he was resting his cheek on Bucky's chest, the pounding of Bucky's heart a steady beat in his ear.

"I think we made a mess," Steve said. He couldn't keep the grin off his face. "Your friend isn't going to be happy."

"Fuck 'im," Bucky said, stroking one had through Steve's hair and down his back in a way the made Steve almost want to purr.

"I'd rather fuck you." He gave his hips a little thrust in a way that earned him a moan from Bucky.

"You're gonna kill me, Steve," Bucky said, but he didn't sound upset about his impending death. "You really are."

"I can't do that," Steve said, suddenly all serious. "I want you around for a long time."

Bucky didn't say anything to that, just wrapped his arms and legs as tightly around Steve as he could and buried his face in Steve's shoulder.

They stayed like that for the longest time, until Steve was afraid Bucky's come was going to glue them together, and he got up to clean up the worst of the mess. Cleaning up turned to cuddling, turned to moving against each other, slow and easy and not at all rushed, until they ended up making a mess again. But it was getting late, and Bucky's friend finished his shift at midnight and they really did have to leave.

They retrieved their clothes from throughout the apartment, making a game of it, putting on each item as they found it, neither one sure if they wanted to be first or last dressed. Then they did the best they could fixing up the bedroom.

"I wouldn't be so fussy, but I'm hoping Gerry will let me have the place again."

"And why would that be?" Steve shoved his shoulder into Bucky's, then leaned and pushed them both back onto the now straightened out bed and wrapped his arms around Bucky.

"I've got this fella I might want to bring back here." Bucky put his arms around him. "He's a scrawny little _gweilo_ and a pain in the ass, but I sorta like him."

"He doesn't sound like much of a catch," Steve said.

"Ya wouldn't think so," Bucky said, his face buried in Steve's hair so he didn't have to make eye contact. "But he's the best."

"I don't know about that. I think my fella's even better."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. Chinese, handsome, and only a bit of a pain in the ass."

"Sounds like a keeper."

"I think so."

They lay like that for several minutes, huddled together, Steve not wanting to break the easy silence that had fallen between them, and Bucky not being any more chatty. But as the minutes passed, Steve started to think about what they'd said and how much he wanted Bucky, and what a future might look like for them. He started to tense, worrying that they might not have a future at all. How likely was it for them? Two guys, one white, one Chinese? It wasn't ever going to be easy. Steve found his thoughts drifting, thinking of all the things that could go right between them, and all the things that could go wrong. What if they got arrested? What if they got beat up by some asshole on the street? What if Bucky's parents figured things out and forbid Bucky from ever seeing him again?

"What would they do, if they knew?" he finally blurted out, his thoughts three steps ahead of his words.

"What?" Bucky startled beside him. 

"Your parents. If they knew about us. What would they do?"

"Oh." Bucky huffed, his breath tickling Steve's neck. "Um…"

"You don't have to answer," Steve said. "It was a stupid question."

"No. It's all right. It's…" Bucky trailed off, and though Steve couldn't see his face, he could feel the way Bucky's hand tightened on his arm, could feel the way his heart was racing in his chest. "They probably wouldn't be happy. But they'd still expect me to marry some girl, have babies. Carry on the family line." He turned so Steve could finally see his face. He was smiling, but the expression was tight and bitter, one he hadn't seen on Bucky's face before. "That's Confucian filial piety for ya; expects ya to close your eyes and think of the family, no matter who you love."

A sudden burn of jealousy for this theoretical girl that Bucky would have to make theoretical babies with started in Steve's heart, moving like fire through his veins. It must have showed in his face, because Bucky touched his cheek gently.

"Hey, don't you worry. That ain't gonna happen, no matter what Confucius says."

"But your parents..."

"But nothing. I don't expect you've noticed but it's not like there's a ton of Chinese girls out there pining for my charming smile. Just a lot of single lunkheads like me, and not nearly enough girls to go 'round."

And yeah, Steve supposed he hadn't seen many girls, or women at all, in Chinatown. But he hadn't thought too much about it. Now he started to wonder.

"Why...?" Steve started to ask, then balked, wondering how to even phrase a question he didn't know how to ask.

"You heard of the Exclusion Act?" Bucky asked. 

Steve answered with a shrug. He'd seen it mentioned in the papers, but he only had a vague idea of what it was. He knew, though, that it wasn't good. 

"It's a nice little law designed to keep shifty characters like my family and me from polluting the racial purity of the country. On account of us being the Yellow Terror and all. And what it means in practical terms is there's a lot of guys who came over here from China to make money for their families, but not a lot of those families came over before they got shut out by the law."

Steve had never felt quite so ashamed of his country as he did at that moment.

"I'm sorry," he said, knowing the words were entirely inadequate.

"Don't be. It ain't your fault." Bucky squeezed him as tight as he could, and then dropped a sloppy kiss on the side of his mouth. " _Ngoh oi neih_ ," Bucky said. _I love you_.

" _Ngoh oi neih_ ," Steve returned. He was never going to get tired of saying that. He was going to learn how to say I love you in every language there was so he could say it to Bucky a different way every day for the rest of his life.

* * *

Wednesday, Steve practically ran from the subway to Uncle Wong's clinic. A day without seeing Bucky had been too long.

He smiled when he came within sight of the clinic and saw the door opening, figuring it was Bucky coming out to meet him. Instead, an older, bearded Chinese man wearing an elaborate cheuhng saam emerged from the clinic, followed by a gang of much younger men dressed uniformly in white t-shirts, loose black pants and canvas shoes. Bringing up the rear of the group was Old Cheung. He clearly recognized Steve from their past encounters, and glared at him as he passed.

Steve froze in place until the whole group had disappeared around a corner, then rushed into the clinic, fearing that he'd find Uncle Wong and Bucky hurt, the clinic in ruins. Instead, he discovered the two men sitting at Uncle Wong's desk, sipping tea from the tiny purple clay cups Steve had only ever seen Uncle Wong use when he had someone important at the clinic.

"W-What?" Steve stammered out, but before he could ask one of the thousand questions he had tumbling through his head, Uncle Wong spoke.

"I hear you've met my sister and her family." It took Steve several dislocating seconds to realize he was speaking English, his slight accent sounding much like Mrs. Dyun's.

"You speak English!" Steve was only capable of saying the obvious, because he was still in the midst of wrapping his mind around that one fact, and kicking himself for not realizing it earlier. Because of course Uncle Wong must be Mrs. Dyun's brother, so of course he must speak English, and Steve just felt stupid.

"I do," Uncle Wong said.

"Then why did you let me think you couldn't?" Steve was confused, and a bit affronted.

Uncle Wong stared at him with the expression he wore when making a judgment. After what seemed like an eternity to Steve, he finally responded.

"I've found it useful to pretend I don't understand English when meeting a non-Chinese person. It shows much about their character. If that person treats me as if I am a lesser creature of lower intelligence because I don't know their language, I know that person is not to be trusted." He smiled. "Such a person is also often easy to manipulate, since they will consistently underestimate me."

"I hope I didn't…" Steve started, suddenly horrified that he might have shown a lack of respect to Uncle Wong.

"You were never less than considerate, Steve," Uncle Wong assured him.

"But, then why not tell me you could speak English?" Steve looked over at Bucky for an answer, feeling confused and hurt. Did Uncle Wong not trust him? Did _Bucky_ not trust him? Bucky returned his look with a shake of his head, as if he knew what Steve was thinking.

"Don't blame my nephew," Uncle Wong said. "I made him keep up this subterfuge."

"Why?" Steve could see no reason for such a tactic.

"Because you seemed a smart boy, and I wondered if you might be able to learn _Gwongdungwa_ if you were pushed hard enough." Uncle Wong folded his hands on his desk and gave a slight smile, the first such expression Steve had ever seen on his face. Uncle Wong's expression usually tended toward grim satisfaction. "As it turns out, you have surpassed my expectations. I see no reason why you cannot become something close to fluent, if you keep learning and practising."

Steve stood in place, open-mouthed, a little astounded that Uncle Wong seemed to have complimented him and unsure about how to respond. He turned to Bucky.

"Don't look at me, pal," Bucky said with a shrug. "I'm still getting over the fact that you're the first one of my friends he's actually liked."

"None of your other friends have Steve's strength of will or talent," Uncle Wong said, his tone calm and just a bit amused.

"Um…" Steve was caught between pride at having earned Uncle Wong's good opinion, and embarrassment that Bucky might think he was some sort of suck up.

"Now, I think it's time I see what my nephew has taught you." Uncle Wong stood and gestured at the door leading to the martial arts school. Once on the training floor of the big room, he sat on a wooden bench at the front, his hands folded in his lap, his expression serene.

"Wait," Steve said, realizing Uncle Wong's revelation distracted him from other questions he had. "Before we get started, what did the Hip Sing Tong want?"

"What they always want. For me to teach them, and only them. I gave them my usual answer."

"Oh."

"No more delaying, Steven. Let us begin."

Steve felt suddenly shy, not wanting to disappoint Uncle Wong, not wanting to betray the confidence Bucky had had in him, not knowing how to start. He raised an eyebrow at Bucky. Bucky only nodded, and then Steve knew what to do. He and Bucky bowed to each other, then to Uncle Wong, and then they began.

He showed Uncle Wong everything he'd learned, from break falls and simple wrist grabs to advanced kicks and forms. He threw Bucky and was thrown. They sparred, each anticipating the other's moves, turning their fight into an intricate dance that left Steve exhilarated. When he had shown Uncle Wong everything he knew, when he was panting with exhaustion, he finally bowed one last time to Bucky and stood, waiting for Uncle Wong's judgment.

Uncle Wong looked at him, his expression impassive, his hands still calmly folded in his lap. Steve held his breath, wanting nothing more than his approval.

Finally, after far too long from Steve's point of view, Uncle Wong stood and nodded and smiled.

" _Neih jun bay ho la._ " _You're ready._

Steve wasn't quite sure what he was ready for, but Bucky must have known. Because he looked at Steve and grinned.

* * *

Uncle Wong had ordered Steve to be at the school the next night, so Thursday evening he took the train in from Brooklyn. Bucky was waiting for him at the station, and he took Steve's elbow and walked him toward the school. The warm pressure of Bucky's hand on his arm calmed the nerves Steve had begun to feel.

"What am I getting into?" Steve asked him as they approached the clinic door.

"You'll see," Bucky said, and the crooked smile on his face got Steve worried all over again.

The clinic was deserted, but Steve could hear muted voices talking and laughing. Steve tried to slow down, but Bucky kept him moving through the door to the martial arts school.

Steve was used to this place being dimly lit and empty, their own private domain. Now, the lights that hung from the ceiling were all blazing, and it was full of men dressed like the Hip Song Tong thugs had been, in loose dark pants, white t-shirts and canvas shoes. Some were stretching, some were jumping rope like the boxers in Goldies gym. Some were sparring, while others were practising with long staffs or weapons that looked like miniature scythes. All of them were chatting. At least they were until they noticed Steve on the floor. Then, one by one, they fell silent and stared at Steve. Steve felt his heart beat faster in panic as he came under scrutiny from thirty pairs of eyes. Some seemed friendly, some seemed curious, but there were a few who were looking at him like he was a foreign invader. Which, to be fair, he supposed he was in this school.

"Who's the _gweilo_?" someone blurted out just as Uncle Wong emerged from an office beside the smaller practice studio Steve and Bucky always used. Uncle Wong reached out and smacked the man who'd spoken up firmly in the head.

"This is Steve," Uncle Wong said in English before switching to _Gwongdungwa_. " _He will be training with us from now on._ " Uncle Wong was wearing the same simple clothes as his students, and moved through the crowd until he stood at the front of the room, his expression as impassive as it always was. " _I expect you to treat him with the respect you would show any of your classmates._ "

"I ain't got any respect for the Tsui twins," someone said from the back, his lower east side accent as strong as Bucky's. There was muted laughter until Uncle Wong glared them all into silence. 

" _Anyone who does not treat Steve with respect will be asked to leave this school_ ," Uncle Wong continued in _Gwongdungwa_ , and Steve shrank in on himself a bit, not wanting to attract even more attention. He'd had teachers in grade school who tried to intervene on his behalf, and it had always ended with him getting beaten up more, not less. " _Ming ming bah_?" _Do you understand?_

There was some muttered assent and shrugged shoulders, which didn't seem to satisfy Uncle Wong at all.

" _Ming ming bah_?" he repeated, more loudly and firmly.

" _Ngoh deih ming, sifu,_ " the class all said in unison. 

" _Sifu_?" Steve whispered to Bucky.

"It means master," he whispered back. "Get used to calling Uncle Wong that."

" _Hou_ ," Uncle Wong said. _Good_.

And then he began the class.

First, they did a warm-up, jumping jacks and jogging on the spot, sit-ups and push-ups, every man, including Steve, trying their best to impress Wong _Sifu_. Then, they worked on their stances, Uncle Wong making them all hold horse stance for far longer than Steve thought was possible. Steve was in better shape now than he'd ever been in his life, but he still could feel his muscles trembling long before Uncle Wong let them shake out their legs.

"Not so easy, is it, _gweilo_?" hissed someone behind him.

"Shaddup, Wu," Bucky whispered back. "Watch out, or Steve'll kick your ass."

"He can try," Wu shot back.

Steve didn't say a word. He kept his eyes firmly at the front of the class where Uncle Wong was demonstrating the correct way to move from horse stance to bow and arrow stance, and tried not to get drawn into a fight. Not that he'd ever back down, but he tried only to fight when it mattered, when it would help someone else, when he was standing up for what was right. Yet another guy underestimating him wasn't worth a fight; it was just another day ending in y.

Not that everyone was like Wu. Most of the other guys were friendly. They were encouraging when Steve worked with them on his throwing techniques, and helpful when he couldn't remember the opening moves of the five animal form. But Wu wouldn't let it drop, and when it came time to spar at the end of the class, he volunteered to be Steve's partner before Bucky could say a word.

"You better watch it, Wu," Bucky said. Steve could hear the warning in his voice.

"You afraid I'm gonna hurt your little _gweilo_ friend?" Wu shot back, low enough that Uncle Wong couldn't hear him.

Steve gave one emphatic shake of his head when Bucky looked at him, mentally urging Bucky not to make a big deal of this. He'd never make it in the class, never gain the respect of the other students, if Bucky was going to swoop in to his rescue every time there was a bit of tension.

"Nah," Bucky said with a wave, his voice sounding far more calm than his eyes looked. "I was trying to keep Steve from hurting you. But go ahead. Be his partner."

Wu laughed, but he looked just a bit worried. Steve gave Bucky a look of gratitude.

So, Steve stood across from Wu as everyone else in the class formed into pairs. When Uncle Wong called for sparring to start, they bowed, and began their bout. 

Uncle Wong had given everyone instructions to use light contact in their bouts, but the first punch Wu landed was a jab to his mouth that split Steve's lip. Steve jumped back and licked his lip, tasting the salt and copper of blood. Oh well. It wasn't like he'd never been punched before.

"Ya gonna go crying to the teacher, _gweilo_?" Wu said, his mouth in a sneer.

"Nope." Steve shook out his shoulders and moved into fighting stance. "Thought I'd leave that to you."

"You stupid…" Wu began, then threw himself at Steve with no technique and little skill. It was comforting to know that a bully could always be taunted into doing something dumb, whether they were Chinese, Irish or Italian.

Steve used everything Bucky had taught him in the last few months, and managed to land more punches than he let through. And he didn't pull them, either. He saw Wu wince after the first one, and keep a more respectful distance from Steve when he wasn't launching an attack himself.

By the time Uncle Wong called time on the bout and got everyone to move to a new partner, Steve and Wu both had a few new bruises, and Wu had gained at least a grudging respect for Steve.

"You're okay, for a _gweilo_ ," Wu said as he bowed to Steve.

"You're okay, too," Steve said before he moved on to his next partner.

"I'm Terry Yee," his new partner said as they bowed to each other. "Don't pay any attention to Wu. He's always an asshole."

"I heard that, Yee," Wu yelled across the room.

"I meant you to," Yee replied, then began his bout with Steve. This time, the blows were mere touches that didn't hurt either of them.

Steve fought with four more students that class, every one of them a decent guy who did his best to make Steve feel welcome. And Steve did his best to do the same for them, complimenting them on good hits, speaking _Gwongdungwa_ to the two who didn't know much English, being unfailingly polite to them all.

At the end of class, even Wu gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder before saying goodbye.

When all the other students were gone, Uncle Wong came up to him.

" _Neih hou ma_?" he asked, and Steve knew that it wasn't just a polite question this time, that Uncle Wong really wanted to know how he was.

" _Hou hou_ ," Steve said. _Very good_. Because he absolutely was. He'd enjoyed working with Bucky, but this was a whole new level, with both Uncle Wong and the other students pushing him even further than he'd already managed. Even with the split lip that still stung when he poked it with his tongue, this night had been fun.

When the class was over, Bucky volunteered to lock up the school and clinic. After Uncle Wong had bid them good night, he produced a key from his jacket with the widest grin Steve had ever seen on him. 

"Gerry's on night shift tonight."

"What are we waiting for?" Steve grinned right back at him.

* * *

After that night, Bucky and Chinatown became Steve's whole life. He spent every waking moment there, sketching street scenes or portraits of its citizens, people who were more and more becoming friends, and trying his best not to mess up Bucky's friend's apartment. (Steve had never met Gerry, but he figured he was going to blush for days if he ever did, what with the things he and Bucky had done in his place.) 

Gongfu classes at Uncle Wong's were one of the highlights of his week, and the other students more and more became great friends. When he let slip that his birthday was on July 4th, they all insisted on taking him out to Nom Wah for a birthday dinner.

And he never missed a Sunday night dinner with Bucky's family. Mrs. Dyun seemed to have taken it as a personal challenge to fatten Steve up, and would practically stand over him to make sure he ate every dumpling or one more piece of roast duck or soy chicken. Grace became the little sister he'd never had. He and Bucky would treat her to ice cream whenever they had some spare change. And for her sixteenth birthday, Steve bought her a translucent blue silk scarf and had Master Liu teach him how to paint it with delicate white clouds and black birds in flight. She gave Steve a crushing hug when she opened the present, and wore the scarf everywhere, a flash of blue always tied at her throat.

Steve's _Gwongdungwa_ improved by leaps and bounds, and when he got laughed at for speaking Chinese it was now almost always because no one expected a scrawny little blond _gweilo_ to sound like he'd just arrived from Hong Kong, and not because he'd fucked up his tones. His calligraphy improved, too, if slowly, to the point where Uncle Wong took over his lessons, meeting with him on Mondays before his lessons with Master Liu. He and Bucky still got together on Friday nights, though, and took full advantage of having the school to themselves.

Steve had never been so happy, had never felt more like he'd found his place in the world.

Not that everything was perfect.

Bucky only came to Brooklyn once. 

It had been a sunny August day, not a cloud in the sky, and hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, but gorgeous. Steve had met Bucky at the subway station, eager to show him his neighbourhood, the places where he'd grown up, the apartment he'd shared with his mom. He'd wanted to show Bucky the sketches his dad had done before he'd been shipped off to the killing fields of the Great War, and the photos Sarah Rogers had brought over from Ireland of relatives Steve would never meet.

But things had gone wrong as soon as they'd gone to his favourite diner, and he'd noticed the stares and whispers Bucky got. Then, as they were leaving, a guy muttered a foul slur under his breath as they'd passed, and Steve chambered his fist to sucker punch the asshole without even thinking about it. It was Bucky who'd grabbed his wrist and held him back. 

"Trust me, Steve. It ain't worth it."

Steve thought Bucky was worth it, was worth any sacrifice Steve could make, but he wasn't going to argue with him here in public, in a place Steve had formerly thought of as a safe haven. He sure as hell wasn't going to darken the door of the fucking place again.

Things got worse from there.

There were more stares in the streets, more hostile, hissed-out words that left Steve angry and shaking until they escaped into his building. He nodded hello to Mrs. Ryan at the door, and to a few of the neighbours, going about their business in the early evening, but instead of the usual pleasantries he saw surprise in their faces, or confusion, or in one or two, outright hatred.

He wasn't stupid. He knew he got stares in Chinatown. He knew some of Bucky's neighbours were wary of him. But he'd also found acceptance there, had made friends besides Bucky. He and Bucky regularly went to Nom Wah with the Tsui twins and Terry Yee after Uncle Wong's class, and Wu had even come with them once or twice. He had a community there, people he could depend on. A community he'd thought he had here.

They made it to his floor, and he unlocked his door with hands shaking from anger. Any pleasure he'd hoped to find in bringing Bucky to his home had long since evaporated. 

He turned to Bucky, and found him looking at him with a determined expression, but when Steve put a hand on his arm he could feel a tremor pass through it.

"I'm sorry," Steve said immediately, placing both his hands on Bucky's shoulders.

"Don't worry," Bucky said, looking over Steve's shoulder to avoid meeting his gaze. "It's nothing I ain't used to."

And that made Steve feel even worse, knowing the bullshit Bucky had been through today was something he'd faced before. It made Steve want to look after Bucky like Bucky had always looked after him.

He steered Bucky through the apartment and back to the bedroom, his hands firm on Bucky's shoulders. He gently eased him down on the bed, then took off Bucky's shoes. He pulled him down beside him, holding him in a fierce embrace, chest to chest, his chin on Bucky's shoulder.

"I'm sorry I didn't know" Steve said, trying desperately to keep his voice steady as he spoke, his voice barely a whisper. 

"You didn't know what, Stevie?" 

"I thought I knew what it was like, being you. My whole life I've gotten in trouble 'cause of the way I look. Guys look at me and they see a sickly little runt they think they can push around. Or they see a stupid punk who can't keep his mouth shut. Or a fairy that ain't man enough for them. And that's bad enough. But the way they look at you, it's worse. It's like they don't even see you. They just see the idea of what they think you are."

"Yeah. Well." Bucky blew a breath out and shrugged his shoulders, as if he didn't know what to say.

"It ain't right," Steve said, hissing out the words.

"No. But there ain't much we can do about it."

"I'll do everything I can for you," Steve said, carding his fingers through Bucky's hair. "I'll fight the whole fucking world for you, Buck."

"I shoulda known," Bucky said with an anaemic laugh.

"You shoulda known what?" Steve asked, curiosity merging with the fierce protectiveness surging through him.

"That first day we met. When you faced down Old Cheung and then said not fighting never took with you. I shoulda known what I was in for."

"You'd do the same for me," Steve insisted. And he knew he was right. He knew Bucky better than anyone he'd ever met.

"Yeah." Bucky sighed into his hair. "I guess I would." He kissed Steve's jaw and held him tighter.

"We're together forever," Steve said, and tightened his own hold on Bucky.

"'Til the end of the line," Bucky said.

"'Til the end of the line," Steve agreed.

Bucky pulled back far enough that Steve could kiss him. He kept his mouth gentle and calming, even as his hands unbuttoned Bucky's shirt, planting kisses on each inch of skin he revealed. He used his hands and mouth and tongue to drive away anger and fear, until the only emotion left in the room with them was love.

They were both quiet in their passion, conscious of the thinness of the walls. When they were done, Steve got a cloth and carefully cleaned them both up, and then they dressed, their eyes never straying from each other.

"I gotta go, Stevie," Bucky said as he took him in a strong hug. "I got work in the morning."

"I'll walk you to the train," Steve said, the instinct not to be parted from Bucky stronger than ever.

This time they didn't run into anyone on the stairs. And in the dark, Bucky didn't draw the same hostile glares that he had in the fading daylight. They made it to the subway entrance without Steve wanting to punch anyone. At the top of the stairs, Bucky gave him a quick hug.

"Look after yourself, punk."

"And you keep safe, jerk." Steve let his hand linger on Bucky's shoulder a moment too long, and then Bucky was walking away from him. As he watched Bucky disappear into the station, he was overcome with a fear for Bucky, now that he knew how hostile the world outside of Chinatown could be to him.

It was after eleven when he got back to his building, but Mrs. Ryan was standing in her doorway, like she'd been waiting for him to get back.

"Can I talk to you for a minute, Steve?" she asked, and then waved him into her apartment. Steve was too worn out to protest, or to wonder what it was that couldn't wait until morning. But then he looked at his landlady, standing in her front hall, her eyes not meeting his, and he had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly what this was about after all.

"I was wondering…" she said, her voice trailing off in a way that told Steve he wasn't going to like what she had to say.

"What, Mrs. Ryan?" he pushed her. He felt his own anger building, and he just wanted to get this over with. 

"Well, I'm going to have to ask you not to bring your friend here again." She spoke quickly, as if she wanted to get this unpleasantness over with as quickly as possible. "Only, there've been complaints, about having one of _those people_ here. I'm trying to keep this a nice building, you know."

Steve felt sick at finding all the ugliness he'd seen this evening appear in the face of nice Mrs. Ryan, the woman who'd helped out when his mom got sick. The woman who'd brought him casseroles once a week for two months after they'd put Sarah Rogers in the ground.

Steve's vision went red and he could feel his heart thunder in his chest as he clenched his jaw so hard it was a wonder it didn't break.

"In some places in this city, the Irish are still considered _those people_ , Mrs. Ryan," Steve said through gritted teeth. "You should remember that."

She gasped, her expression turning from embarrassed to incensed.

"Your mother must be turning in her grave, Steven Rogers, knowing her son is friends with a Chinaman."

"If you think that, then you didn't know my mother at all," Steve returned, because he'd heard his mom talk often enough about how badly anyone who wasn't white was treated in the hospital where she worked. Then he stomped up the stairs, thinking suddenly that he had to get out. That he couldn't live anywhere that Bucky wasn't welcome. That Mrs. Ryan was probably going to kick him out if he didn't move out himself. And that if he was going to move, it wasn't going to be to another building in Brooklyn, not when so much of his life was across the river in Chinatown.

* * *

With Bucky's help, it only took Steve a couple of weeks to find a new apartment. It was in a building two blocks over from the Dyuns' apartment, and the super was a friend of Uncle Wong's. The place was tiny, even smaller than his place in Brooklyn, but clean, and it got good light in the afternoon.

Steve gave his notice to Mrs. Ryan the next day, telling himself that he wasn't hurt at all by the relief in her eyes when he told her he was moving out. Bucky helped him move the day after that, with a truck he borrowed from the warehouse where he worked. Steve clenched his teeth as they loaded up the truck, waiting for Mrs. Ryan or one of the other tenants to make a crack about Bucky being one of "those people," but fortunately nobody said a fucking thing to either of them. Still, Steve was tense until they were driving across the Brooklyn Bridge, heading toward Manhattan and Chinatown. As the truck rumbled over the bridge he took one deep breath in and released it, and then looked over at Bucky, who was directing all his attention on the traffic streaming across the bridge, a slight frown on his face, his hands clutched on the wheel.

He looked back for a second at Brooklyn receding behind them, and found it less painful than he'd thought it would be. He was leaving the place he'd called home for nearly twenty years, the place where he'd grown up under the careful eye of his mother. But he was also leaving the place where he'd been beaten up more times than he could count, and where Bucky was never, ever going to be entirely welcome. 

Brooklyn wasn't home anymore. Chinatown was home. Uncle Wong's clinic and school was home. The Nom Wah Tea Parlor was home. 

Bucky was home.

He took advantage of the relative privacy of the truck to lean into Bucky, tipping his head so it rested against Bucky's shoulder, enjoying the warmth of Bucky against him.

"Watch it," Bucky said. "I gotta drive this thing." But he didn't sound the least bit annoyed, and he leaned back into Steve. 

With Steve so close, their lives settled into a new routine. They'd meet at Nom Wah early in the morning before Bucky started his shift at the warehouse, having a breakfast of congee and tea. Steve found the rice soup an odd breakfast food for about a week, until Bucky pointed out it wasn't any weirder than oatmeal.

When Bucky would go off to work, Steve would explore the neighbourhood, making sketches for more finished works, or visiting the storekeepers who'd asked him to do a sign for them. He got even more known in the neighbourhood, and got more commissions for everything from brush paintings of the Manhattan skyline to be hung in family living rooms to blue pictures for some of Bucky's co-workers, guys they sometimes went out for beers with.

Afternoons Steve would spend in his apartment, taking advantage of the natural light that came into his place to do work on more polished pieces, brush paintings or oils or pastel portraits. And around the time he'd begin to lose the light, Bucky would open the apartment door with the key Steve had given him, and they'd snack on _bao_ Bucky had brought from their favourite bakery.

Bucky would stay over one or two nights a week, not as much as Steve would have liked, but not so often that Bucky's mom and dad asked too many questions and started pushing Bucky to find a nice girl to marry and keep the Dyun family line going. Steve was learning more about Chinese culture every day, and mostly finding it fascinating, but he was really starting to fucking hate the concept of Confucian filial piety. 

Things weren't perfect. Perfect would be Bucky living with him full time, and some fancy Manhattan gallery showing his works and selling them for a bundle to millionaires like that Howard Stark fella Bucky admired so much. But they were as close to perfect as Steve expected to get in this lifetime.

But close to perfect didn't always mean safe.

* * *

One Wednesday, with the weather still warm but the feel of fall stirring in the air, Steve arrived at the clinic and found shattered glass and splintered wood. Bucky held a giant piece of plywood over the hole that used to be the clinic's front window as Uncle Wong hammered nails to keep it in place.

"What happened?" Steve asked as he rushed over to help Bucky wrangle the unwieldy piece of wood.

"What do you think happened?" Bucky asked. "The Hip Sing Tong happened."

" _You don't know that_ ," Uncle Wong said in _Gwongdungwa_. 

"I saw them and their baseball bats running away," Bucky spit out. "Old Cheung was trailing the pack. The bastard gave me a wink before he turned the corner." He kicked at the brick in front of him. "I'd have gone after them, but there were too many of them."

" _I'm glad you showed some restraint_ ," Uncle Wong said, giving the last nail a vicious bang.

"You gotta do something," Bucky said. He gave the wood a testing shake, and then he and Steve let go. "They're not going to give up."

"I will never work for them," Uncle Wong said, switching to English. He moved into the clinic, with Bucky and Steve following him.

"They're going to hurt you." Steve had never seen Bucky quite so upset. And no wonder. The thought of Uncle Wong being hurt by the tong made Steve sick to his stomach.

"They can try." Uncle Wong shuffled through his desk, and pulled a paper out of it. "Steve, could I ask you to call the glazier to order a new window? McGann is Irish. He might give you a better price." He handed the paper, an invoice from McGann's Glass Emporium, to Steve and pointed him to the clinic's phone. "He'll have the measurements for the window."

Steve took that to mean that this wasn't the first time the clinic's windows had been smashed. And that made him both angry and sad at the state of the world.

"Shit," Bucky said, earning a look of disapproval from Uncle Wong.

Steve dialled the number for McGann's while watching Uncle Wong pull Bucky aside to talk to him, their voices low enough that Steve couldn't even hear if they were talking in English or _Gwongdungwa_. When a man answered the phone, he put on the slight brogue he had slipped into around his mother, and talked McGann down to a price slightly lower than the one on the invoice in his hand, with McGann promising the new window for Friday morning. He was hanging up when Bucky pulled his arm out of his uncle's grasp.

Uncle Wong turned to Steve, his expression apologetic.

"I'm afraid I can't do a treatment today, Steve. My thoughts are flying in too many directions." And that was the first time he'd ever heard Uncle Wong admit to anything disturbing his usual calm.

"C'mon, Stevie," Bucky said, his voice sharp and tight. "We're going to clean up, and then I wanna get outta here."

Steve thought he saw Uncle Wong wince. But he did bow to them, and then leave the two of them to sweep up the splinters littering the sidewalk.

Bucky didn't say a word as they swept up the splinters outside and in, and then locked up the clinic, and his actions were rigid and jerky, nowhere near his usual grace. Steve wasn't sure what to say, wasn't sure what Bucky and Uncle Wong had talked about that had left Bucky angry and his uncle out of sorts, so he kept his mouth shut.

When Bucky threw the lock and pulled out the key, he grabbed Steve's wrist, his grip unyielding, and dragged Steve down the street.

"C'mon," he said without a glance in Steve's direction.

"Where are we going?" Steve asked as he jogged to keep up.

"A place I know. I need a drink."

Bucky dragged Steve down, and then along East Broadway, finally stopping in front of rundown-looking bar with an unpromising name.

"The Bloody Bucket? Really, Buck?"

Bucky shrugged and pushed him through the door. The inside was even less promising than the outside. The bar was dimly lit, the floor was sticky, and the bartender was surly, though he served them quickly enough when Bucky threw money his way. "Keep them coming," Bucky ordered as he picked up the beers the bartender slopped onto the bar in front of them.

Bucky led Steve through the bar. It was early yet, so the bar was sparsely populated with both Chinese and white patrons, all of whom looked as surly as the bartender, most of whom scowled at the two of them as they passed. Bucky picked a booth at the back, then proceeded to down his drink in one determined go.

Steve knew the look of a man set on getting drunk when he saw him, so he pushed his own drink toward Bucky without a second thought, not at all surprised when Bucky downed that one in short order, too.

"You wanna tell me what Uncle Wong said to you that's got you so riled up?" Steve asked after Bucky slammed the second glass onto the table between them.

"It ain't him," Bucky said, then waved over the bartender for a second round. "It's just…" He looked like he was struggling for the words to tell Steve what he was feeling. "My grandparents came to this country for a shot at a better life, and to get away from men like _that_." Bucky didn't have to explain he meant the Hip Sing Tong. "But we get here, and there they are, fucking parasites who just want to live on the misery of others. And there's nothing we can do. Most of the mooks in Chinatown are too scared to stand up to them. Then there are proud idiots like Uncle Wong who think they can handle them all on their own."

"What do you think we should do?" Steve was ready to follow Bucky's lead on this, whatever he thought needed doing. 

"I don't know." Bucky seemed to deflate with the words. "Even if someone did report them, nothing would happen. The cops either don't care or are in the pay of one of the tongs." 

Bucky nodded at the bartender as he placed two more glasses on their table. He took two sips of his beer, but to Steve's relief he didn't finish this one immediately. Steve took a tentative sip of his own beer, unsurprised when it was as lousy as the rest of this place.

They spent the rest of the evening at the bar, drinking lousy beer and talking about how they were going to straighten out all the ills of the world, starting with the tongs. Steve nursed his one beer all night, so he was relatively sober, but Bucky was as drunk as he'd set out to get and still angry at everyone. Too angry to go back to his parent's place. So when the bartender finally kicked them out of the bar at closing time, Steve dragged Bucky back to his place, where they kissed and licked and fucked until Bucky fell into an uneasy sleep and Steve watched over him while the sounds of the city drifted in through his window.

The next morning, Bucky was hungover and miserable, but Steve pushed him out of bed, made him change into one of the shirts he'd started leaving at Steve's place, and then dragged him to Nom Wah for breakfast before packing him off to work at the warehouse.

In the light of day, neither of them talked about the night before or the Hip Sing Tong, just like neither of them had ever talked about Brooklyn and why Steve had moved from there. The world could be a fucking awful place. They both knew that and there was no point in dwelling on it. You fought when you could and stood up for yourself and your friends and what you believed, and there was nothing else you could do.

* * *

After the window incident, Bucky kept Steve in sight every waking moment he could. He spent Thursday _and_ Friday night at Steve's place, and showed up at Steve's door as soon as his shift was over in the evening. He didn't take Steve to the Bloody Bucket again, though, for which Steve was eternally thankful. Saturday, he spent all day hovering at Steve's elbow as Steve finished a WPA project, an oil of a street scene in the East Village, and then dragged Steve to his parent's place for dinner. Steve cringed as he greeted Mrs. Dyun, worried she'd be upset that Bucky had been spending so much time with him, but she just nodded hello, told him to wash his hands and repeated her usual declaration that he needed to eat more.

It's not like Steve didn't understand how Bucky felt. Since the window incident, he'd felt an overwhelming need to keep a protective eye on Bucky, too. 

On Monday, Bucky's protective instincts even led him to follow Steve to his calligraphy lesson with Uncle Wong. He mooched around the clinic, straightening jars of herbs on the shelves and humming off tune under his breath as Steve sat hunched over Uncle Wong's desk, trying to perfect _seung_ , a twenty-five-stroke character that Steve was certain had been created just to torment him.

He'd just about got _seung_ so the proportions of the strokes were right and it didn't look like it had been made by a slightly incompetent grade schooler when he heard the door open behind him.

"We're closed," Uncle Wong said in English. 

Steve turned, and saw a group of men piling into the clinic. Without being told, Steve knew they must be the On Leong Tong, the Hip Sing Tong's greatest rivals. Not that they looked anything like the Hip Sing Tong. Instead of cheuhng saams or the ubiquitous loose pants and t-shirts Steve now associated with both the Hip Sing Tong and Uncle Wong's _gongfu_ classes, these men were dressed in pinstripe suits, with fedoras and polished black shoes, watch chains and tie pins. They looked more like they belonged in a Hollywood gangster film than Chinatown.

Steve put down his brush and stood, positioning himself behind Uncle Wong, Bucky moving to his side.

The man at the front of the pack was clearly the leader. He raised a hand, and his men froze in place, then took a step toward Uncle Wong.

" _Sifu_ ," he said, bowing to Uncle Wong. "How are you?" he asked in English, his accent clearly Lower East Side.

"Liu _Sin Saang_ ," Uncle Wong said, though he didn't return the bow and remained seated. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"I heard about your troubles with our mutual acquaintances and have come to offer my support," Liu said, his tone calm and reasonable.

"And what would be the cost of your support?" Uncle Wong sounded calm, but Steve knew him well enough by now to hear the scepticism in his voice.

"I'd ask for nothing in return." Liu spread his hands and smiled. Steve didn't trust him one little bit.

"Nothing?" Uncle Wong clearly felt the same as Steve.

"Nothing, but a recognition of our mutual interests. And your membership in our business organization."

"I won't join the Hip Sing Tong, just as I won't join you. I want no part of your battle, not on either side."

"You can't avoid this battle," Liu said. "And wouldn't you rather pick the reasonable side? After all, we don't go breaking people's windows." 

"You're no more reasonable than the Hip Sing Tong," Uncle Wong said. "You dress in your _gweilo_ clothes, and bribe _gweilo_ policemen and politicians to do your dirty work. You tell people you're businessmen and think you're better than the other tongs, but you're just like them. You feed on the misery of our people."

"Don't act like you care about our people. You teach a _gweilo_." Liu pointed at Steve. His face was impassive, but Steve could sense the disdain in his words. 

"I'll teach _anyone_ who comes to me. I'd teach both your men and the Hip Sing Tong, if you agreed to a truce under my roof. I'll teach anyone who needs to protect themselves from either of you. And I will continue to teach Steve Rogers." Uncle Wong seemed to sit up a little straighter. "Steve is family." 

Steve felt his breath hitch in his chest, felt a prickling in his eyes at Uncle Wong's words, at the revelation that his teacher considered him family. And he felt proud of being the student of a man who was brave enough to stand up for what he believed.

"Very well." Liu's eyes narrowed, but he bowed once again. "But, remember when all this is over, that I could have prevented it."

Steve and Bucky stayed in place as Liu and his men filed out of the clinic, but as soon as the door had closed on them, Bucky moved to lock it and then turned on his uncle.

"You have to do something," Bucky said, and Steve could see a panic in Bucky's eyes that he felt fluttering in his own stomach.

"What would you have me do?" Uncle Wong said. He was as composed as ever, but Steve thought he could hear a hint of distress in his teacher's voice. "I won't bow to either one of them. I won't give up on teaching anyone who needs it."

"Go to the cops," Bucky insisted, even though they all knew what a bad idea that was.

"What police Liu and the On Leong haven't bought off are in the pay of the Hip Sing Tong."

"It's not f—" Bucky started to say.

"I _know_ ," Uncle Wong said. "But they won't care."

"Maybe I should stop coming here," Steve said. "I'll make it worse." Not that he wanted to stop coming to the clinic. It would kill him to do it, but he'd do it for Uncle Wong and Bucky.

"No," Uncle Wong said, his voice firm. "You give them an excuse to act, nothing more. If you weren't here, they would find another excuse. Your absence wouldn't stop them, but it would stop you from improving. It would serve nothing." His expression softened for a moment. "And I would miss you."

Steve blinked rapidly, and might have embarrassed himself with tears, if Bucky hadn't elbowed him in the ribs.

"I shouldn't have ever introduced you two," Bucky said. "He definitely likes you better."

Steve elbowed Bucky back, and they scuffled for a moment before Uncle Wong called them back to order.

"Let's get back to work, Steve. You almost have _seung_."

Steve knew he wasn't anywhere close to getting the character as fluid as Uncle Wong, but he appreciated the distraction. He picked up his brush again and bent back to work, and tried to ignore the way Bucky kept glancing out to the street through the newly replaced window.

And he started to wonder just what it was that the On Leong Tong thought they could prevent.

* * *

Steve was breathing hard, frowning in concentration as he tried to work out the best way to get his opponent to drop his guard. He was so intent on his own strategy, he didn't see the punch that got him straight in the mouth, just felt the bloom of pain as his teeth cut the inside of his mouth.

"Hey!" he said, tasting blood as he ran his tongue along the inside edge of his lip.

"I wouldn't 'a got ya if you hadn't dropped your guard, Rogers." Wu laughed, and Steve couldn't help but laugh with him. Wu was right, after all. Bucky was always warning him not to drop his left hand when he was deciding on an attack. But even with that problem, Steve figured he was doing okay. He was four hits up on Wu this bout, and hadn't lost to anyone else this class. In fact, in the four weeks since the On Leong Tong had shown up at the clinic, Steve had got to the point where he could spar against anyone in the school and win, give or take a lucky punch or two.

For the first week after Liu _Sin Saang_ and his men had appeared with their dire predictions, Steve had been terrified that the Hip Sing Tong were going to smash up Uncle Wong's clinic and school, or burn it to the ground. But after a week, when things had gone on as normal, Steve had gradually relaxed and settled back into enjoying his life more than he ever had.

Not only was his skill at _gongfu_ better than it had ever been, he also felt like he'd had a breakthrough with his art, mixing Chinese and Western styles in a way that had his WPA handler muttering about getting him a solo show in a gallery in the Village where he knew the owner. 

And then there was Bucky…

Steve spared a glance across the practice floor to where Bucky was sparring with Terry Yee. Bucky wore a frown of concentration, his forehead covered in a sheen of sweat, and a lock of hair flopping nearly into his eyes. He was fucking gorgeous. As if he could feel Steve's eyes on him, he turned his head and gave Steve a crooked grin and a wink. Steve couldn't help but grin back, feeling the warm glow at his centre that Bucky always gave him. And tonight, Bucky would come back to his place, like he always did on Thursday nights, and on any other night he could manage it, and then they'd give each other a whole different kind of glow.

Steve figured he was the luckiest guy in New York City. Maybe even on the Eastern Seaboard.

Uncle Wong called time on the bout, and Steve bowed to Wu, and prepared to move onto his next opponent, but there was a rumble from the direction of the clinic, and then the door to the practice floor burst open and Old Cheung and a crew of Hip Sing members poured into the space. 

Steve cursed himself for ever thinking that the Hip Sing Tong had given up on recruiting Uncle Wong. He moved forward in a wave with Uncle Wong's other students to face down the invaders. He got toe-to-toe with Old Cheung himself, the two of them shouting insults to each other in _Gwongdungwa_ until a hand on his shoulder wrenched him back. He put his hands up, ready to fight, until he realized it was Uncle Wong who had hold of him, his expression as thunderously angry as Steve had ever seen it.

" _Sau seng_!" Uncle Wong bellowed at the crowd. _Be quiet_! Steve was shocked at the power of his voice, and it seemed he wasn't the only one. The space immediately went silent, with everyone looking to Uncle Wong. Steve felt a touch on his elbow, and turned to find Bucky at his side, looking as concerned as Steve felt.

There was some stirring, and Steve wondered if Uncle Wong was going to single-handedly throw out the tong members, when one last man emerged through the door.

It was the older man in a _cheuhng saam_ Steve had seen leaving the school so many months ago. In spite of the subdued tension around him, he looked as serene and calm as Uncle Wong usually did.

"Wong _Sifu_ ," the man said with a bow.

"Yen _Sifu_ ," Uncle Wong returned. " _I assume you're here once again to request I join with you?_ " he asked in _Gwongdungwa_.

" _M'ou_ ," Yen said. _No._ " _I'm here to demand it._ "

Uncle Wong opened his mouth to respond, but before he could utter a word, Yen held up a piece of fabric, a translucent fall of blue silk with blue clouds and blacks birds painted on it that Steve recognized with a sickening lurch.

Bucky obviously recognized it as well. He tightened his grip on Steve elbow until it was painful.

"Where's my sister, you asshole?" Bucky yelled out. Steve had developed a fondness for arguing in _Gwongdungwa_ with its truly foul profanity, but he'd noticed Bucky always fell back to English when he wanted to be really offensive. "What the fuck did you do with her?" He lunged forward, and Steve only just managed to hold him back, while Old Cheung and the other tong members poised themselves to attack.

"You sister is safe," Yen said, his English tinged by a faint British accent. "For now. Your uncle has the power to make sure she stays that way." He turned to Uncle Wong, whose expression looked outwardly calm, but Steve could see the leashed fury in his eyes. "What's your answer now?"

Uncle Wong remained silent, but Steve could see the defiance in the set of his shoulders, in the clench of his jaw. He stared at Yen, his eyes unblinking.

"Because I am a compassionate man," Yen said, "I will give you 24 hours to make your decision. But if in 24 hours you have not decided to join our tong, then your niece will pay the price." He turned to face Steve and Bucky. "And your nephew will be next."

Yen nodded to Uncle Wong, who didn't respond at all, not even with a blink of an eye. Then he gathered up his men and swept out of the school.

A silence lasted on the practice floor only until they heard the slam of the front door, then the students erupted into an uproar of shouted voices, of _Gwongdungwa_ and English, of profanity and dismay, with Uncle Wong the silent eye of the storm.

"Enough!" Uncle Wong finally said. And then " _Sau seng_ ," when the racket continued around him. Only then did a quiet finally settle around him.

"What're we gonna do?" Bucky said, and Steve had never seen him quite so panicked. And no wonder. Steve felt utterly sick, thinking of Grace in the hands of the tong, thinking how scared she must be, thinking of what could happen to her.

"What we have to, to save your sister," Uncle Wong said.

"You're not going to give in to them?"

"I'll do what I have to," Uncle Wong repeated.

"Shit." Bucky kicked at a wooden training dummy at the side, his face contorted in grief. "What am I gonna tell Mama?" As Steve watched, Bucky's face morphed into horror as he realized what Steve was beginning to. "I gotta go home," Bucky blurted out, and then he was gone, flying through the door.

"Follow him, Steve," Uncle Wong ordered, not that he had to. Steve would follow Bucky anywhere, would back him up every time.

Steve gathered up both their jackets ran out the door, hissing at the cold November air that struck his face. His feet carried him in the direction of the Dyuns' apartment without conscious thought. He ran as fast as he could, forcing himself to move even as he could hear his lungs wheeze with the effort and the cold, could feel the quiver of panic sap the strength from him.

He got to the Dyuns' building, and clattered up the stairs and onto their floor. The apartment's door was swinging open, and Steve rushed in without knocking, moving through a living room that looked like it had been hit by a tornado, the furniture pushed out of place, the household altar turned over with its statue of General Kwan smashed. Steve moved to the back, to the bedrooms. 

He found everyone in Grace's bedroom. Mrs. Dyun was sprawled on the bed, crying loudly, her body heaving with the sobs. Bucky sat beside his mother, awkwardly patting her back and looking like he didn't know what to do. Mr. Dyun was standing in a corner of the room, his posture stiff, his features locked down. The only thing that betrayed his feelings was the slight shudder of his mouth, the clenching of his fists.

Bucky was murmuring assurances to his mother that everything would be okay, that they'd fix it.

Steve stood beside Mr. Dyun, wishing that he was here in better circumstances, that he'd come over for a family dinner and Grace had just popped out to get some tea from the store.

"They took her," Mr. Dyun finally said, his voice sounding hollow and bleak. "We fought them, but they took our little girl." He turned to Steve, and Steve had never seen such emptiness in someone's eyes. "What are we gonna do, kid?"

"We're gonna get her back." Steve was surprised at how confident he sounded, when he didn't feel that way at all. "We're gonna hurt those bastards and get her back."

* * *

Steve left Bucky with his parents, zipping up his jacket and walking back to the school, his mind churning with panic and fear with each step he took. Grace was like his own sister, and any threat to her hurt him as bad as it did Bucky. He was overwhelmed with the need to save her, to help the Dyuns', to spare Bucky the pain he was feeling. 

As he drew closer to the school, the panic started to fade, and the fear hardened into resolution. And by the time he reached the front door of the clinic, he had the beginnings of a plan.

Because, the thing about Chinatown was, somebody always knew something.

Cram that many people into a small area, and there was always someone overhearing something they shouldn't, or noticing something their neighbour had done that was a little out of the ordinary. Steve had heard things he shouldn't have just because someone had made assumptions and started talking about incredibly private things in _Gwongdungwa_ in front of him. So, he _knew_ someone must know where Grace was, someone who was willing to talk, or could be coerced into talking, tricked into it. It was just a matter of finding that person. And doing it before Yen's 24-hour deadline was up.

When he walked back onto the practice floor, every student was still there, all of them talking over each other as Uncle Wong tried to get control. It didn't take much for Steve to convince Uncle Wong that he had a good idea, and for the two of them to convince everyone else. They all wanted to help. They'd just been trying to decide on the best way to do it.

They all left the school soon after, with orders from Uncle Wong to get some sleep while they could, and then begin the search first thing in the morning. Steve stuck around for a few minutes after everyone left, was there to see the change in his teacher once his students were gone and he didn't have to keep up a front. He'd never seen Uncle Wong look quite so… defeated.

"We'll find her," Steve said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. "We'll get her back."

"I know we will, Steve." Uncle Wong patted his shoulder. " _Do jeh_." _Thank you_.

Steve went home right after that, but he couldn't take Uncle Wong's advice. He lay awake on his lumpy mattress in his shoebox of an apartment, worrying about Grace and Bucky and their parents, hoping like hell everyone was going to come out of this okay.

* * *

Steve was back at the school as the sun was coming up. When he hadn't been able to sleep, he figured he might as well get up and do what he could. He found Uncle Wong sitting at his desk in the clinic, writing what looked like a letter in Chinese characters on tissue-thin paper. Beside him, there was a stack of envelopes addressed in his meticulous script.

Uncle Wong looked up as Steve approached, and though he was doing his best to show no weakness, Steve could tell he hadn't left the clinic all night.

" _Jou sahn_ ," he said. _Good morning_.

" _Jou sahn_ ," Steve replied, then nodded at the envelopes. "What are those?"

"Requests for information. You're right that someone must know something. I'm calling in every favour I'm owed." The door opened behind him, and Steve turned to see the Tsui twins enter. "And there are my couriers." Uncle Wong finished the letter he was working on, stuffed it into an envelope, and then hurriedly addressed it, before handing the stack of envelopes to the Tsuis. "Fast as you can," he told them.

"You can depend on us," the Tsui twins said together. Then they were gone.

More students began to filter in through the door, and Uncle Wong and Steve sent them out again, each one given an area to search, people to talk to. 

Bucky arrived half an hour later, his eyes rimmed in red, looking as if he'd slept about as much as Steve had.

"How are your folks?" Steve asked, throwing an arm over Bucky's shoulder, the closest he'd let himself get to Bucky in public.

"Lousy." Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets. "Mama won't stop crying, and Baba just looks shell-shocked. I left one of the neighbours looking after them."

Steve gave Bucky's shoulder a squeeze, and then went back to helping Uncle Wong coordinate the search. Bucky left soon after to talk to everyone at the warehouse where he worked and make his own contribution to the search.

At first, Steve wasn't going to go out at all. He stood out too much, and too many people in Chinatown knew of his connection to Uncle Wong and the Dyuns'. He didn't want to send out a warning bell that they weren't just sitting waiting for Yen's 24-hour deadline to wind down, even if he chafed to do something. But then he had an idea.

"You said the tongs have paid off the cops in the area?" he asked Uncle Wong.

"Yes," Uncle Wong nodded.

"Then I know what I can do."

He borrowed a cap from Terry Yee, pulled up his collar, and then paid a visit to each of the police stations surrounding the area. At each station, he pretended to be a slightly drunk Irish immigrant looking for a runaway wife, keeping his ears open for anything incriminating as he told his fabricated tale of a lost job and domestic infidelity.

At the third station, his strategy paid off. As he was relaying his story to the desk sergeant, two beat cops came in and pulled the sergeant aside. Steve pretended to sprawl semi-drunkenly on the counter, and managed to hear "Mr. Yen" and "Hip Song" and "Mott Street." The three men moved further away when one of them noticed Steve, so he didn't hear anything else useful, but it was a start. He played out his part when the sergeant came back to the desk, struggling to keep to his script when all he wanted to do was to race to the clinic and tell Uncle Wong and Bucky what he'd found out.

When he finally made his fake report and then rushed back to the clinic, he found Bucky talking excitedly to Uncle Wong as several other students surrounded them. 

"I found something," Steve told them.

"So did I," Bucky said, his eyes excited.

"The Hip Sing have something going on…"

"On Mott Street," he and Bucky said together. Then they both turned to see Ben Tsui bursting through the door, out of breath, waving one of the envelopes Uncle Wong had given him.

"She's above the Golden Swallow restaurant on Mott Street," he gasped out.

"Well," Uncle Wong said. "It seems we have our answer."

But knowing where Grace was and getting her back were two different things.

Bucky wanted nothing more than to rush in and grab Grace before anything could happen to her. As much as Steve wanted to do the same, he also saw the danger in that plan.

"We don't know anything about where they have her, how many people they have guarding her," he told them all. "We don't know what they'd do to her if we can't get to her immediately."

Bucky winced, but after a pause he finally nodded in agreement. 

"We need to figure out what we're up against before we go charging in," Steve said.

"We got a cousin with a place across the street from that restaurant," Ben Tsui said. "We could stake the place out from there."

"My little brother delivers telegrams," Terry Yee added. "I could borrow his uniform, get into the building to check things out."

"All right, then," Bucky said. "Let's go." Steve could see him practically shaking with eagerness, which made it even harder to do what he had to.

"I don't think you should come," he said, and put his hand lightly on Bucky's chest, feeling his heart beating hard under his touch.

"What are you talking about, Steve? Of course I should come. She's my sister." Bucky's voice cracked on the last word.

"That's why you shouldn't come. She's your sister. They'll be looking out for you. If you show up in the neighbourhood, they'll know we're onto them, and then they might move her."

"And what about you? A scrawny blond _gweilo_ shows up on Mott Street and they're not gonna recognize you?" Bucky's tone was vicious, but Steve didn't take it personally. He knew where Bucky's frustration was coming from.

"I'll wear a hat, cover my hair. And I'll keep out of sight. But one of us should be there for Grace, Bucky. You can't, so I should."

"Steve is right," Uncle Wong said, putting his hand gently on his nephew's shoulder. "And you should be here when Yen returns. He'll expect that."

Bucky stood unmoving for what seemed like forever, his jaw clenched, his mouth a tight, quivering line, his eyes gone suspiciously glassy. Then, his shoulders seemed to collapse and he bowed his head in surrender.

"Yeah. Okay." His voice seemed so far away, and Steve didn't like that Bucky wouldn't meet his eyes. But then Bucky looked up, and the dread in his expression was worse than not being able to see what was in his eyes in the first place. "When are you heading out?"

"We should go now." Steve looked around the room, and Uncle Wong and the other students there nodded in agreement.

"Gimme one minute," Bucky said. Then he grabbed Steve's wrist and pulled him, dragging him through the clinic and into the school and into the back room that had always been theirs. Bucky shut the door firmly but quietly, and then he was right beside Steve, wrapping his arms around him, squeezing him so tight that Steve almost couldn't breathe. Not that he cared. Bucky could hold him as tight as he wanted and Steve would only want more.

"You get her back, Stevie," Bucky whispered in her ear. "You keep her safe."

"I will." Steve hugged Bucky back with all his strength.

"And you look after yourself, too. I wouldn't know what to do without ya."

"I will—" 

Anything else he might have said was cut off by Bucky's mouth catching him in a kiss, one that was frantic and insistent and all-consuming. Steve concentrated on the moment, on the feel of Bucky's arms around him, on the sound of his breathing, on the coolness of his mouth and the taste of his tongue. Too soon, though, he pulled away from the kiss and pushed Steve away.

" _Ngoh oi neih_ , you dumb punk."

" _Ngoh oi neih_ , you stupid jerk," Steve replied, pushing him back.

They stood apart, Steve looking at Bucky, drinking in the sight of him, his rumpled clothes and his tousled hair, so different from his usually freshly pressed appearance, his desperate eyes and determined mouth. Then, he forced himself to move, to leave their safe haven and join the others in the clinic.

"Okay," Steve told the Tsui twins and Terry Yee, Wu and Harry Ng, and all the others who'd volunteered to go after Grace. "Let's go."

He didn't look back as they left for Mott Street, but he could feel Bucky's eyes on him until they turned the corner.

* * *

"I feel like a G-Man in a gangster film." Wu was hunched over at the front window of the Tsuis' cousin's apartment, his eyes fixed on the building across the street.

"You're more a gangster than a G-Man, Wu," Ben Tsui said.

"Like hell," Wu argued back.

"I gotta agree with my brother," Will Tsui said. "You don't look like any G-Man I've seen."

"How many G-Men have you actually seen, Will?"

"A ton. In the movies."

"I look like a _real_ G-Man, not a movie one." Wu stuck out his chest.

"Will you all shut the fuck up!" Steve hissed out. Everyone avoided his eyes and did shut the fuck up. For the moment, at least.

Steve bit his lip, and looked out the other window. He knew he wasn't being reasonable, that they were just blowing off steam, that they were all as concerned about Grace as he was, or almost as much, anyway, but he still couldn't handle their chatter. He felt that someone from the Hip Sing Tong was going to hear them or notice them peering out from behind the rough cotton curtains, that they were going to get Grace hurt, or worse. He just wanted to curl up and stay small and quiet until it was time to act, until it was time to go get Bucky's sister. Because he'd never forgive himself if something happened to Grace, and he wasn't sure Bucky would either.

They'd been here all day. The Tsui twins' cousin, Siu Kai, had been happy to give them the run of the place for the day, had even volunteered to help get Grace out when the time came. ("He's pretty good at _gongfu_ ," Will had said, "for someone who doesn't train with Wong _Sifu_." That had earned him a smack from Siu Kai, and a laugh from everyone else.)

They'd come into the building through the back alley, thank Christ, because the Hip Sing Tong had a bunch of thugs out front keeping a constant eye on the street. Ten minutes after they'd settled in, Terry Yee had shown up not just with his little brother's Western Union uniform, but with his little brother. 

"Mikey Yee," the kid had said, sticking out his hand for Steve to shake. He was taller than Steve by a hair and even skinnier, and as friendly as his brother.

"Thanks for doing this," Steve had told him.

"Grace is in my class," Mikey had said. "She's a good egg."

Mikey was smart, had not only brought his uniform and his bike, but a stack of old telegrams to stick in his satchel in case any of the Hip Sing Tong searched him, including one addressed to the building where Grace was being held. As they watched out the front window, he'd peddled up Mott Street, stopping at the restaurant. The Hip Sing thugs had stopped him at the door, and Mikey had chatted with them, even getting them to laugh, before he'd disappeared into the building. He'd re-appeared a few minutes later, giving the Hip Sing guys a cheery wave and then getting back onto his bike.

He'd shown up back at the Siu Kai's apartment a few minutes later, slightly out of breath.

"They've got her on the second floor, in the front apartment," he'd told them. "There's five of them on the landing and three more in front of the door. They don't have anyone on the third floor at all."

"That's ten out front, and eight inside." Steve had added them up.

"Eighteen of them, that we know about. With more inside with Grace," Terry had said. "And only ten of us."

"Eleven," Mikey had insisted. "I can help."

"No!" Terry and Steve had blurted out almost simultaneously. There was no way Steve had wanted to get another kid involved in this mess.

"But you'll need all the help you can get." Mikey hadn't been wrong. But maybe there was another way.

"Maybe we don't have to fight them all," Steve had said, beginning to see other possibilities. "And there's something you _can_ do," he'd told the kid.

Steve had told them what he was thinking, and then they'd sent Mikey off to fill Uncle Wong in on their plan.

Which left them where they were, arguing about whether Wu looked like a G-Man as they huddled around the windows of Siu Kai's apartment and watching the light of day faded to dusk, all of them hoping that Steve had been right, that his plan would work out.

It was almost dark, and almost the time of Yen's deadline, when they finally saw some movement on the street. Two Hip Sing Tong men emerged from the building and started to talk to the men on the street, lighting up cigarettes, and Steve began to hope. After a minute, three more emerged. They were all talking loud enough that the sound drifted up to where they watched, and Steve saw several of them look at their watches.

"This is it," he whispered, hope beginning to rise in his chest.

As if that had been their cue, a mass of Hip Sing men began to move down the street, toward Uncle Wong's school, leaving two men on guard in front of the building. They watched as the men disappeared down the street and around a corner, then waited a minute more, making sure they didn't return. When it was clear they weren't coming back, Wu was the first one to speak.

"Two downstairs, three more inside. Those are the best odds we're likely to get."

Steve frowned and nodded.

"Everyone knows their job?" Steve asked. They all nodded. "Then let's go."

They emerged from the back alley, not wanting to tip the men at the front off, not risking they'd hurt Grace if they realized a rescue was in the works. Steve and his friends moved quickly through back streets, to the alley behind the restaurant's building, easing open the back door and hoping there weren't any guards where they shouldn't be. Once they were all in, they listened for a minute, hearing only the usual sounds one heard in a building like this: the clinking of plates from the restaurant, the murmur of voices from the apartments upstairs. But they could also hear the shuffle of feet on the landing above them.

There should be three of them up there, with who knew how many more in the apartment with Grace. Steve couldn't help it. He bowed his head. 

"Saint Christopher," he whispered, "intercede for me, and make my luck and my faith in my Lord increase every day."

"You Goddamn Catholics," Wu whispered, giving him a push.

"Hey," Steve said. "If you want to say a prayer to General Kwan or Buddha, go ahead. We need all the help we can get."

Wu gave him a sceptical look, but Terry nodded and said something quick under his breath before nodding at Steve. Then, Wu and Terry started up the stairs, quietly, but not quite like they were trying to hide, and they started a conversation arguing the relative merits of the Yankees versus the Dodgers. (Terry was a Dodgers fan, one more reason Steve liked him. But Wu, ever the asshole, liked the fucking Yankees.)

Steve listened intently, heard their footsteps reach the second floor landing, then paused.

" _Neih hou_ ," Steve heard Wu say above him. 

" _Neih hou_ ," said an unfamiliar voice. There was a pause, and then a crash and a muffled shout.

Steve held his breath, until he heard Wu hiss "C'mon," down the stairs. Then there was no more time for subtlety. They ran up the stairs, with Ben and Will staying below to prevent the two thugs outside from attacking from behind. When they got to the second floor, they found three Hip Sing men unconscious on the floor as Wu launched a kick at the apartment door, bashing it open with one bang of his booted foot. 

Four men confronted them, Hip Sing Tong fighters in their usual loose trousers and t-shirts who began shouting at them in a combination of _Gwongdungwa_ and English. Steve didn't say a word, just launched himself at the nearest one, landing a blow in his gut before the guy could even get his guard up, then finishing him off with an elbow to the head. Beside him, he was vaguely aware of the others fighting, but all he could think of was Grace and how he had to find her fast.

He ran down the hall, pausing in front of the one closed door at the end to take a deep breath. Then he raised his foot, aimed, and kicked beside the doorknob, just like Wu had done, and the door flew open.

The room revealed had a rickety-looking bed and night stand. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls, and there was a vase with wilted flowers on the nightstand. At the foot of the bed, Old Cheung held Grace, an arm around her throat. 

"You, again," Old Cheung said, then spit on the floor beside him. "You stupid _gweilo_."

"You _cat tau_ ," Steve said, as he settled into fighting stance, letting his mind clear, just like Uncle Wong had taught him. He caught Grace's eye, and was struck by how much she looked like her brother. There was no doubt she was scared, but she also had the same defiant jut to her jaw that Bucky got when he was fighting a particularly tough opponent. And that gave Steve hope that the worst she'd gone through was being stuck in this fucking apartment with these assholes.

He rolled his shoulders, and gave her a wink, then he surged forward.

As he moved, Grace raised one foot and stomped on Old Cheung's foot with her heel, and Old Cheung released his hold on her, letting her scramble to a corner of the room. But he recovered before Steve got near him. 

It was the most brutal fight Steve had ever been in, neither of them holding back, both of them fuelled by rage. Steve's rage was cold, a strength he could draw on, not a liability.

He landed an early blow on the side of Old Cheung's head, and was rewarded with a bellow of pain from his opponent. Old Cheung fought back with a flurry of blows, one managing to get through Steve's defences to split his lip. They went back and forth, neither having an advantage, neither giving any quarter.

Steve finally thought he saw an opening. Old Cheung moved forward, and Steve could see a kick coming. Instead of moving back, out of range, he moved forward, inside the kick, where it shouldn't have had any power. But Old Cheung anticipated him, seeing two moves in front of Steve, and suddenly he had Steve pinned against the wall, a firm grip around his throat.

As Steve struggled to breathe, Old Cheung looked into his eyes and sneered.

"I'm gonna enjoy killing you," he said as Steve tried to wheeze around his hold. "You've been a pain in the ass for too long." He squeezed Steve's throat tighter. Steve scrabbled at his hands, trying to break the hold, but he was already beginning to see grey at the edges of his vision. "And then I'm gonna have some fun with your girlfriend here, no matter what Yen _Sifu_ said about her."

There was a flash of movement, then a crash, and Steve could breathe again. And there was Grace, standing over Old Cheung, the shattered remains of the vase scattered around his unconscious body.

"Thanks, Grace," Steve said, rubbing his throat and trying his best to stay on his feet.

"My pleasure, Steve," she said with a grin. "That guy was a real jerk. And my brother woulda killed me if I'd let anything happen to you."

"He woulda killed me if I'd let anything had happened to _you_ ," Steve said.

Then they were hugging, Steve unsure if the trembling he felt was in his body or Grace's.

"Everything okay in here?" Wu asked, popping his head in the room.

"Yeah," Grace said, before reluctantly pulling away from Steve. She looked down at Old Cheung, beginning to moan on the floor. She aimed a good solid kick at him, and that made Steve smile. She was definitely Bucky's sister.

"Everything's just fine," Steve said.

 

When they emerged from the bedroom, they found the rest of the Hip Song fighters tied up in the living room, half of them unconscious, the rest surly and possibly a little scared. 

"C'mon, kid," Terry said to Grace. "Let's get you home."

They moved through the streets of Chinatown, Steve and the others forming a protective barrier around Grace. Grace stayed strong through the whole walk, and Steve thought she was taking what had happened to her all in stride until they reached her home. Steve knocked on their door, and as soon as the door was thrown open, Grace collapsed, crying, into her mother's arms. 

The true enormity of what she'd gone through crashed through Steve. She was a tough kid, but she was just a kid. He nodded briefly at Mr. Dyun, then pulled back as Grace's parents moved her to the couch, hugging her and petting her hair and making sure she was safe and whole.

They left the Tsui twins and Wu with the Dyuns, guarding them against any retaliation from the tong, then they all headed for Uncle Wong's school.

There was no one outside the clinic, but as soon as they entered the building, Steve could hear a murmur of voices. When they went through the door to the practice floor, the murmur became a roar. Uncle Wong's students were arguing with the men of the Hip Sing Tong, voices raised in both _Gwongdungwa_ and English.

Steve wormed his way through the throng, throwing an elbow when he couldn't move forward, desperate to reach Bucky. When he got to the centre, he found Uncle Wong and Yen facing each other, both impassive and unmoving as their people raged around them. Bucky stood at Uncle Wong's side, his expression grim and set.

Steve forced his way to Bucky's side and touched his elbow, the only contact he'd allow himself here, surrounded by both friends and enemies.

"She's safe," he whispered into Bucky's ear. Bucky blinked, and then he clenched his jaw, holding back on emotions that Steve could only imagine. 

"Thank you," Bucky said, the sound of his words lost to the surrounding din, but his meaning clear. Then he caught Uncle Wong's attention and moved in close to speak to him.

Uncle Wong closed his eyes for a moment, and Steve thought he could see a wave of relief pass through his body, before he once again faced down Yen.

"You have no business here," Uncle Wong said to Yen, drawing himself up to his full height. "Take your men and get out."

"Are you forgetting what the stakes are?" Yen asked, looking affronted. "Do you value your niece's life so cheaply?"

"I'm forgetting nothing. And my niece means everything to me. But I think you'll find she's no longer yours to bargain with."

The room quieted around them, all attention on the two men at its centre. As Yen cast his eyes around the room, he noticed Steve, and his expression darkened.

"You trusted this _gweilo_ with your family?"

"This _gweilo is_ family. All my students are family. And if you target any of my family again, not only will I not join you, I will destroy you." Uncle Wong's voice was calm, but Steve could hear the steel behind it, and he was sure Yen could as well.

Steve felt Bucky tense beside him. He clenched his own fists, preparing for a fight that seemed inevitable. 

Yen looked all around the room, took in Uncle Wong's students, all of them, every one, ready to fight for their teacher. And it seemed between one moment and the next, he made a decision. He didn't order his men to attack. Instead he bowed to Uncle Wong, his movements stiff and formal, and then he waved his men out. There was grumbling, and shoving, but soon enough the Hip Sing Tong began to leave the school.

The practice floor was quiet until the last tong member had left and the door had closed behind them. Then, as one voice, all the students began cheering. Everyone who'd stayed with Uncle Wong came up to those who'd gone to save Grace and were shaking their hands, patting their backs. Steve realized how right Uncle Wong had been. These men were his family, in every meaningful sense of the word. He'd fight for them all, and he was sure they'd do no less for him.

Steve turned to Bucky, and only had a moment before Bucky hugged him tightly. Steve returned the hug, gripping Bucky with a fierce strength. He'd fight for all the men in this room, but he knew he'd die for Bucky, would do anything to protect him and his family.

When the clamour died down, he and Bucky broke apart, to find Uncle Wong looking at them with concern.

"Go home, Ah Chi," he said. "Look after your sister. And you go with him, Steve."

They didn't have to be told twice. They ran from the clinic, through the streets, Steve struggling to keep up with Bucky. He felt his lungs strain as he ran up the stairs of the Dyuns' building, Bucky already well ahead of them. Uncle Wong's treatments had helped his asthma, but they hadn't eliminated it completely. By the time he reached the top, the door to the Dyuns' apartment was open, and Wu and the Tsui twins stood awkwardly in the living room.

Ben didn't say a word, just pointed down the hall.

Steve found Bucky in Grace's bedroom. He was hugging her, her arms wrapped around him tightly, while their parents surrounded them. All of them were crying, their sobs wracking their bodies. The moment felt too intimate, too painful, for Steve to intrude on, and he backed away without saying anything.

"You okay?" Wu asked when Steve reached the living room.

"Yeah." No. He was absolutely not okay. But he struggled to hold it together. This wasn't about his pain, and he knew it. "You guys look after them."

"Steve, why don't you—" Ben began to say, but Steve didn't hear any more because he was running out the door, stumbling down the stairs and out onto the street, grateful that it was dark and no one would see the tears running down his face.

He made it to his own place, struggling to get his key in the lock with a shaking hand. He hung up his jacket, putting his key on the nail by the door, and forced himself to eat a bowl of cereal, since he hadn't had anything to eat since someone had stuck a bowl of noodles in his hands at Siu Kai's place. Then, even though it was still early, barely nine, he went to bed, too exhausted and too distracted to consider sketching or reading or even listening to the radio. He pulled the covers up over himself and clutched the extra pillow he'd gotten when Bucky had started staying over regularly. And only then, when he was safe and hidden and out of sight, did he let himself fall slowly to pieces, considering everything that could have gone wrong in the past day, how they could have lost Grace, how the Dyuns could have been hurt, how he could even have lost Bucky if Yen had decided to fight at the end.

It took a long time for the trembling to stop. And even longer for Steve to finally fall into a troubled sleep.

* * *

When Steve woke, it was dead of night, so dark he could only see the bare outline of his dresser across the room, and so late that even the constant noise of Chinatown outside his window was muted.

He turned to the wall, determined to get at least an hour's more sleep before he gave up on rest and faced the day, then startled upright when he heard someone moving in the apartment. He was scrambling for something he could use as a weapon to fight off the Hip Sing Tong when Bucky came through the door.

"Shove over," Bucky said, as he stripped off everything but his boxers. "It's freezing out here." Steve obeyed without thinking, and was rewarded by Bucky surrounding him with arms and legs, living armour against the trials of the day.

Steve hugged Bucky close and breathed in the scent of him, all pomade and aftershave and the sweat of past panic. He felt the tension in his muscles finally begin to ease, felt that he might finally get some dreamless sleep, when Bucky sighed into his hair and spoke. 

"Why'd ya leave, Stevie?"

"I dunno." Steve swallowed and shrugged and tried to push back the hollow feeling he'd got in his gut, watching Bucky with his family.

"You're a lousy liar." Bucky poked him in the side.

"It was nothing."

"C'mon. Spill."

"I just felt like I… I don't know." Steve tried to sort out the feelings that had risen up in him back in the Dyuns' apartment. "I felt like I didn't belong, okay? Like I was intruding."

Even in the dark, Steve could see Bucky's face scrunch up in exasperation.

" _Yau mou gaau cho ah_." And there he was, back in a dirty alley—was it only nine months ago?—with a scrappy Chinese guy yelling at him in a language he didn't yet understand.

"Shut up," Steve said with a shove. "I ain't crazy."

"Maybe not crazy, but you're an idiot. Always letting other people bleed on you, and never wanting to bleed on anyone yourself." Bucky held him closely, resting his chin on Steve's shoulder. "We were worried about you, you dumb punk. Baba wanted to thank you, Mama wanted to feed you, and Grace wanted to make sure you were okay. She said Old Cheung nearly managed to strangle you." Bucky's voice caught and tore, and he held Steve even tighter. "And I just wanted to see you. Even if I couldn't hold you like this." 

"But I—" Steve started.

"But nothing," Bucky cut him off. "Haven't you been listening? You're family, Steve. You’ve been family for a long time."

"What about Confucian filial piety?"

"Fuck Confucius," Bucky said. "What did he ever do for me, anyway?"

That surprised a bark of laughter out of Steve, and he nestled further against Bucky's chest.

"Don't you dare waste a fuck on Confucius. Not when I'm right here." 

Bucky might have been about to laugh, but Steve stopped him with his mouth. And if they didn't get any sleep the rest of the night, neither of them minded in the least.

* * *

### Epilogue

" _Gong hei fat choy_!" _Happy New Year_! 

Steve clinked his glass of rice wine with everyone around the Dyuns' table. Even Grace had been given a small glass of the stuff, in honour of her now being 17, and she giggled as she glanced over to where Ben Tsui sat beside her. It was odd to see Ben without his twin. He'd started courting Grace shortly after the tong incident, and Mr. Dyun had invited him to celebrate Chinese New Year with the family. The two of them were clearly head over heels.

Steve sat back and thought of how far he'd come in less than a year, from living on his own in Brooklyn to being surrounded by this new family he'd stumbled into.

"Don't think too hard," Bucky said, bumping his shoulder with his own. "You'll hurt yourself."

"You should talk," Steve said, returning the bump with a slow smile. 

It had been a wonderful night. The dinner had been delicious: long noodles for long life, fish for prosperity, sweet rice balls for family togetherness, and a precious orange for each of them for wealth. There were stories and laughter, and Mr. Dyun had found a new target for his teasing in Ben.

Now that the plates were nearly empty, Mrs. Dyun declared the dinner finished and commanded Steve to help with the dishes.

"I can help, Mama," Bucky said, standing, only to be waved down by his mother.

"Steve is enough," she said. "You stay and look after our other guest." She gave Ben a fierce look that Steve was very glad not to be on the receiving end of. Not that he wasn't alarmed enough that Mrs. Dyun seemed to want to get him alone.

She ordered him around the kitchen, watching as he scraped plates and piled cutlery into the sink, then taking over the washing while handing Steve a towel for drying.

"My brother says your calligraphy is coming along," she said, keeping her eyes on the dishes in front of her.

Steve nodded.

"He said my characters were adequate enough to do the spring couplet banners for the clinic." He'd been ridiculously proud when Uncle Wong had let him do the banners, even if he was still a rank beginner when it came to calligraphy.

"Hmm." There was a pause. "And Ah Chi tells me you're getting an art show."

"A couple of my paintings were picked for a group show. It's just in a small gallery, though." He was incredibly excited that his work had been chosen, but he didn't want to jinx himself by celebrating too soon. Getting in a show was one thing; making a sale was quite another.

"I'm sure it's impressive," Mrs. Dyun said as she vigorously scrubbed at a plate.

Steve dried a handful of spoons, sensing that Bucky's ma had more on her mind than his art show. He had to wait for three more plates and two glasses to find out what that was.

"Ah Chi also tells us that he wants to move into an apartment with you."

There were a few seconds of silence as Steve's mind churned with all the things he wanted to say, and all the things he shouldn't. He'd known this conversation had to happen when he'd found the apartment a couple of blocks over two weeks ago, and he and Bucky had started discussing what would have to happen for them to move in together. He'd known, but it seemed he hadn't really prepared for it.

"I found a place with a better room for a studio," Steve stuttered out, seeking out a way to explain the move that wouldn't expose what he and Bucky meant to each other. "But I can't afford the rent by myself. Bucky got a raise at the warehouse, so he could take the second bedroom and still help you out and—" 

The torrent of words were cut off as Mrs. Dyun turned and put a wet hand on his wrist.

"Look at me, Steve," she said.

He hesitated, gathering his courage as he felt drops of water run down his hand. He took two long breaths, and then he finally raised his eyes. Mrs. Dyun's expression was firm, but not unkindly.

"Is my son happy?"

Steve swallowed and paused, wondering if Bucky's mother was really asking what he thought.

"Yes," he said, his voice barely audible, even to himself.

"Then promise me one thing, Steve. Promise me this, and I'll give you both my blessing. If Ah Chi finds a girl, someone he can make a life with, promise you'll let him go."

Steve felt his lungs freeze in his chest at the thought of Bucky with Mrs. Dyun's theoretical girl. He felt the back of his throat prickle, felt his eyes tingle. He thought of Bucky telling him about Confucian filial piety for the first time, and how it didn't matter, that he'd never find a girl. He thought of how much Bucky's parents had done for him the last year, how they'd taken him into the family. And he thought he owed her this much, the chance of her getting the grandchildren she'd expected from her son.

"I promise," he whispered, hoping against hope that he'd never have to make good on that vow.

"Good," she said, gripping his wrist firmly before he let it go again. Then she turned to the sink and went back to work on the dishes with a clatter, continuing on as if nothing had happened. "You're not getting out of Sunday dinners, you know. I'll expect both of you, every week."

"We wouldn't dream of missing Sundays," Steve said, struggling to keep his voice steady, overwhelmed with what he'd promised, but also with the thought that it was really going to happen, he was really going to get a place with Bucky.

"You'd better not." She placed another plate in the drying rack. "I expect I'm going to need your help keeping the Tsui boy in line. He and Grace are smitten with each other, but I want her to finish school before they do anything foolish."

"He's a good kid," Steve affirmed.

They finished washing the rest of the dishes, talking about nothing more serious than the restaurant Mr. Dyun worked at changing its menu, and the impossibility of Mrs. Dyun satisfying the Upper East Side women she did tailoring for, but Steve was still relieved when they finished and could join the others in the living room.

"You okay?" Bucky asked, as Steve sat on the arm of the couch beside him.

"Tell you later," Steve said, then turned his attention to Mr. Dyun telling a story about a lobster escaping from the restaurant's kitchen that Steve had already heard a hundred times before, but that always made him laugh. He hoped Bucky would forget to ask about what was bothering him.

But Bucky didn't forget, and as the clock approached midnight and Bucky walked him home down streets where the distant sounds of fireworks echoed off brick buildings, he nudged Steve.

"So, what did Mama want?"

"She gave us her blessing." Steve decided to lead with the good news. "For moving in together."

"What?" Bucky gave him a surprised grin. "How did you manage that?"

"I had to promise something in return." Steve felt the return of the prickling in his throat, and he looked down.

"Aw, Stevie." Bucky looked worried. "What did you do?"

"I promised that if you found a girl, I'd let you go." Steve had been afraid Bucky would get angry, that he'd yell. But he hadn't expected him to laugh.

"Is that all?" Bucky threw an arm around Steve's shoulders.

"It's a lot," Steve insisted.

"It's nothing." Bucky tightened his hold on Steve's shoulder. "I ain't ever gonna find a girl, so it ain't ever gonna happen." He leaned in closer and spoke quietly in Steve's ear as fireworks popped behind them. "We're together forever, Steve. 'Til the end of the line."

"'Til the end of the line," Steve repeated. And standing there in the dark, Bucky's arm around him, his breath on his cheek, Steve could believe that it was true.

* * *

Art by Cassandra S. Fisher  
[](http://imgur.com/IXGerQo)

**Author's Note:**

> There really is a [**Nom Wah Tea Parlor**](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/dining/reviews/13under.html). (Funnily enough, it features in Sebastian Stan's Law & Order episode, as I found out after I had most of this written.) [**The Bloody Bucket**](http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2015/10/in-appreciation-of-the-bloody-bucket-saluting-169-bar.html) is also a real place, though I can't find confirmation of what its name was in the '30s. The Bloody Bucket was too much fun not to use, though. I made up the Golden Swallow restaurant, but I pinched the name from a [**classic martial arts movie**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Swallow_\(1968_film\)) starring the kick ass Cheng Pei-pei. 
> 
> The Hip Sing and On Leong tongs were rival gangs in Chinatown of the time, though I haven't used much more than their names, and their bloodiest battles seem to have been in the teens. 
> 
> And finally, Uncle Wong is my tribute to [**Wong Fei Hung**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Fei-hung), a martial artist, doctor and certified folk hero from early twentieth century Guangdong who's been the subject of countless movies and TV shows. Once Upon a Time in China, with Jet Li as Wong, is an awesome introduction to Wong's legend.
> 
> Enjoy the work? Consider reblogging on Tumblr:  
> [ **The fic**](http://trappingsofzed.tumblr.com/post/164457467635/gweilo-gongfu-by-pr-zed-a-story-for-the)  
> [ **potofsoup's art**](http://potofsoup.tumblr.com/post/164885334402/guyz-not-only-did-przed-do-an-amazing-last)  
> 


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